Mysterious Ways
by Lola Ravenhill
Summary: She's been lost, found the key, unlocked the door to the universe, wandered about, took a detour, stopped, stopped some more, then started again. Now, finally, Rose Tyler is on her way home. The Sonnetsverse reunion story.
1. Prologue: If You Walk Away

Author's Notes:

With a rather interesting season four looming in the distance, I felt compelled to start getting the actual reunion story in this world out, which is why it's being posted as a WIP, something I never do and am really, really nervous about. But I think it's fun, and I hope everyone reading it thinks so too. :) As always, prior knowledge of the sonnets stories is a good idea (found through my profile). Rating on the story is currently set at all ages, however this may go up in the future. Huge, huge thanks to galadriella1 for her smashing beta job and britpicking on the fic, and to paiger1218 for her eyes on this fic as well. Thanks for reading!

Another note: This story diverges from S4 canon after 'The Unicorn and the Wasp'. It'll become plainly clear why... ;)

* * *

**Mysterious Ways**

**Prologue: **

**"If you walk away, walk away, **

**walk away, walk away**

**I will follow."**

**- _I Will Follow,_ U2**

The little girl sits down smack in the middle of the path with no care for the rotting pieces of corn getting on her pink skirt. "Rose, stop, please!" Gemma cries, smashing her fists on the ground.

Rose stops and turns to face her sister, staring down at the girl with sudden tears dripping down her face. It isn't the best location (they're in the middle of a corn maze somewhere in Southeastern Massachusetts, and the weather's just a bit cold and the corn doesn't exactly smell the greatest) for a breakdown, but she's used to dealing with things as they come along by now. "What is it, Gem?" she asks, crouching down in front of her.

"I'm tired," she whimpers. "I wanna go home."

Rose freezes. This is so not what she had expected to hear. Her mind whips through the possibilities, not sure what she should do. "Are-are you sure?" she asks. She still has the gate key and the key to their old mansion, so it'd be possible to get back there…she thinks. But she would then want to come back to her home universe, and that is the hitch. She isn't sure that trip can be done twice.

Gemma looks up at Rose, tears glistening like ice shards in her eyes. "No. I want Mum and Dad back. But they can't come back, can they?"

"No, love, they can't," Rose says, pulling her into a hug. "No one can come back from the dead; it's against the rules of nature." A tiny little voice that pops up in her head occasionally butts in with a thought, saying that in rare and special occasions, sometimes they do come back, but it takes a strong person to deal with the harsh consequences of coming back. Someday she'll figure out where that voice is coming from, that voice that calls out to her from somewhere in the universe, but there are more important things to worry about today.

"I'm tired," Gemma sighs, snuggling into Rose. "Travelling's fun and all, but I miss having my own bed. I miss having a house that's all ours and not have to share a loo with whatever stranger's got the room down the hall."

"All right." And while Rose knows she'd love to keep travelling and not stop until she's found just what she wants – it's not just about her anymore. That was part of being an adult, she supposed, doing what you had to do to make others happy even if it doesn't make you so. "We'll stop."

And so they stop.


	2. Chapter 1: Going Down to Thimble Island

Author's Notes: Presenting the real chapter one to make up for that horribly short bit before. ;) Author's notes from the Prologue still apply. Thanks for reading! :)

* * *

**One: **

**"I'm going down to Thimble Island **

**To find my true love there. **

**I'm sure that I can find one **

**Long of limb with time to spare…"**

**- _Thimble Island_, Rasputina**

One year later…

Once upon a time, Jackie Tyler told her daughter that one day she'd come home and she wouldn't recognize her anymore, that she was becoming a totally different person. Years later, as Rose stands in the bathroom of her friends' apartment and stares at herself in the mirror, she wonders how right her mother was. It's not just the looks that have changed - a darker hair colour and a thinner, more angular figure. In those years, innocence has given way to experience, and a hard and cynical shell has formed around the soft casing of her soul. It's had to form, it's the only way for her to be able to survive and keep moving. The Doctor probably wouldn't recognize her now either. Would he want this Rose? She's not the valiant child he said good-bye to on the beach so many years ago. Maybe the person she is now wouldn't get along with the person he is now. Still, though, if or when the chance comes up, she'll have to take it, to grab hold and not let go until she's satisfied. Her lips quirk at her reflection, and a glimpse of the old Rose Tyler sneaks out – no matter what happens, for some reason she just can't seem to shake that damn optimism that she's had ever since a little girl. Jackie would recognize that, the girl who believed in the impossible and had hope for all things.

Rose shakes her head, clearing the cobwebs and dragging her mind back into the present. While she's in here dwelling on what had been she had two good girlfriends out there waiting with wine, food, and songs to soothe the soul. It may not have been what she had expected of her life, they had no idea at all about her previous life with the Doctor, but it was a good place for her to be. She slips out of the loo and heads back down the hall. "Hey, Marion, where's Gemma tonight again?" One of her girls asks her, and she has to remind herself of the alias they've adopted here. Her middle name is in use, and they've decided to become Marion and Gemma McCrimmon, at least in public. It wasn't their usual m.o., but it was hard to establish a steady life under a name that had been declared deceased a few years back.

"One of her schoolmates invited her to a birthday sleepover, so I've got the whole night free," Rose sighs happily, sliding into a chair at the eclectically set dining table. Her two friends, Louise and Priya, weren't exactly the best at interior decorating, and so they were lucky that they had enough plates and utensils to set the table with. Making sure they all matched wasn't a priority. It fit with the theme of the rest of the apartment, a dishevelled two-bedroom, fourth floor walk-up in an old brownstone. She turns her head and stares out at the lights of the city, shining in orange through the windows. They've been in Boston, Massachusetts for over a year now, the last place she expected to stop. Gemma had been tired of travelling though (Rose admits now that she had probably pushed the little girl far too hard in her search, so absorbed in the hunt that she didn't remember that Gemma needed someplace to call home) and Boston was the nearest city.

Louise, a loudmouthed and bubbly American girl from a few states south grins at her and tops off her wine glass. "Which means we can eat, drink, and be merry until we pass out on the floor."

"Sounds like a good idea to me!" Rose says and they toast. "Oi, where's the food?" she calls out playfully, then ducks as a tea-towel comes flying out of the small kitchen aimed straight for her head. A few seconds later Priya comes out of the kitchen, a large platter with fragrant steam coming off of the top in her hands.

"All right," Priya says with a London accent just as thick as Rose's, "this is Indian cuisine as it was meant to be eaten, not those dodgy curries you get after getting pissed at the local."

"I dunno, those dodgy curries can get you through a long night when you need it," Rose muses, thinking back with bemusement many, many years to a time before she had met the Doctor.

"Yeah, and about thirty minutes after you eat them they're decorating the pavement with whatever else you'd drunk that night," Priya fires back, thunking the platter down on the table and pulling out her own chair.

"And to think that all we did here in the states in college while blitzed was order crappy pizza from Domino's at one in the morning," Louise says, grabbing a spoon and dishing some of the delicious smelling mixture onto her plate.

"One day when we go to London then, we'll have to introduce you to the wonder that is a donar kebab then," Priya says, making Rose groan in remembrance.

"You've got a stronger stomach than I do then," Rose says. "I'll stick with chips, thank you."

"It's tradition!" Priya insists. "All part and parcel of the student experience in England."

"I don't know," Louise chimes in, a slightly evil glint in her eyes. "For some strange reason I don't know if I can believe any of the stories about your school days. They always come off as a bit far-fetched to me."

Priya jabs her fork in the other girl's direction. "I told you, and it's the honest to god truth. The British government's got it all documented that the hospital where I was doing my medical training ended up on the moon once. Go online and check the papers; it's all there." Rose believes her story without question; after all, she's had her own share of strange experiences. She thinks that a certain someone was on the scene with this event as well, nothing provable, just a strong feeling. She doesn't want to ask her though if she had seen a bloke in pinstripes there – it'd shatter this peaceful bubble that she sort of wants to preserve right now. It's a rarity for her to feel this calm and content these days, so when it happens she takes hold of it and enjoys it to the fullest.

"And where exactly were you when this unplanned voyage to the moon occurred?" Louise asks, dark eyebrow arched, and they both watch as Priya's mocha colored skin flushes nearly imperceptibly.

"All right, I was stuck in a bed with a sprained ankle."

"And how exactly did you sprain your ankle?" Louise needles further, knowing just how to push her roommate's buttons. Priya doesn't answer immediately, at which point Louise starts flicking bits of naan bread at her.

"Stop it you lunatic! All right, I sprained my ankle tripping over a dog on my way to hospital that morning. Doesn't matter though! Out the window was moon rocks with one hell of a view of the Earth." The two turn their expectant gazes towards Rose.

She shrugs. "I'm with Pree on this one. I got attacked by walking shop window dummies once in London." Rose doesn't elaborate beyond that, but she can feel that small part of her head slipping back in time to that moment…

_A cool, firm hand grabbing hers. She turns to see a stranger's face there, blue eyes boring right into hers, and a word, just one word, is said._

_"Run!"_

"So if I ever go to London remind me to bring dummy repellent then," Louise says, dragging Rose back into the future once more.

"Alien repellent might be a better idea," Priya says. "Not sure what repels aliens, but there's got to be something."

"You could always try vinegar," Rose comments idly as she takes a mouthful of the curry. The two other girls shoot her a puzzled look, at which point she just shrugs and says "Never mind."

They eat in silence for a few minutes, until Louise puts her fork down with a clatter and begins to speak. "All right, ladies, I have a proposition for you."

"Is it going to involve us getting into trouble?" Priya says, an unholy gleam in her eyes, getting all too much pleasure out of the prospect.

"Only if you get drunk and fall into a canal," Louise says with a roll of her eyes. "Seriously, listen up. Every year, usually around February or whenever Carnival is going to be next year, my grandparents hold this big ol' costume ball."

"Are these the grandparents who own, like, a castle in Italy or something like that?" Rose asks, leaning forward to brace her arms on the table. This is getting good, now.

"Oh yes. Well, technically it's a palazzo, but same difference," she shrugs, picking up her for and dragging it idly through the curry and rice on her plate. "In Venice, which is where they live, Carnevale is a huge deal, has been for ages. So every year they go all out, between the costumes and the decorations and the food and the music and it's absolutely amazing. I'm going to head out there come February, and I was wondering if you two lovely ladies would like to accompany me?" She looks at Rose and then at Priya, hands spread out in offer and a big grin on her face. "Nonna's got plenty of spare beds for you. Oh, and yes, you can bring your sister, Mari – I already asked and it's more than fine." Louise winces just a bit. "There're usually more little kids there than I care for, and at least Gemma's a sweet one and not a total brat. And Pree, if, by chance, you wanted to stop off in London to see your family before hand as well, we've got time for that too."

Rose and Priya trade a look, then shrug in unison. "Seems like you've got it all planned out, huh?" Priya says.

"No reason to say no then, is there?" Rose smiles. Maybe this would be just what she needs to shake that feeling from her feet, that itchy little voice screaming to keep going and keep moving. She hasn't travelled at all since she and Gemma had landed in Boston. A little travel and a big party may be just the thing.

***

At her own little party that evening, Gemma sits in her sleeping bag and watches the giggling girls as they shovel popcorn into their mouths and watch some inane animated flick. It's a night like this when it really hits her that maybe this sort of normality is overrated. She had the entire planet at her fingertips because Rose could give it to them, but because of her they had to stop and now they had been stuck in one place for over a year.

When they first stopped, it was nice. She could go to school, meet cool people, take dance lessons, come home, have dinner with Rose and sleep in her own bed every night. But now…now she's getting those itchy feet again. She didn't realize just how much she liked travelling until she stopped. Maybe she could convince Rose to go somewhere for Christmas. Rose'd like that too. She'd given up her searching for the Doctor because of _her_, and now that just made Gemma feel terrible. Rose needs to search and Gemma needs an adventure, and that's what it comes down to.

Besides, Gemma thinks, shooting a disdainful glance at the backs of the girls in front of her, none of these girls believe in aliens. Anyone with the smallest amount of sense knows that aliens do exist, and if they didn't believe, then Gemma'd be happy to enlighten them.

***

The next day, after Gemma's returned from her sleepover and they're comfortably ensconced in their own living room of their little flat, Rose asks her the question.

"Would you want to go to Italy for this party then? You'd have to miss a few days from school," she says as Gemma works on her homework for the next day.

To Rose's utter and total surprise, Gemma grins and nods eagerly. "Where in Italy is it? I know we were in Rome before; is it near there? Can I get dressed up too? It's fancy dress, right, that means I can wear wings or something, right?"

Rose laughs, falling back on the couch. Definitely not the reaction she had anticipated, given that the girl just didn't seem to want to travel anymore, but she certainly wasn't complaining. "Yes, you can wear wings or whatever else you want. It's not until February, so we've got time to find you a costume. And Louise's grandparents live in Venice, so we'll be headed there."

There was something very important about Venice, something hidden all the way back in the deep dark clouds of her memory, but she couldn't seem to put her finger on it. She should have remembered it, but for the life of her it wasn't coming to her. Time would tell.

***


	3. Chapter 2: Johnny Take a Dive

**Two: "Johnny take a dive with your sister in the rain, let her talk about the things you can't explain…"**

_She lets her other senses feel things out before she opens her eyes. There are twigs and pine needles beneath her bare feet. A light fabric – a nightgown? A bed sheet? – wraps itself around and through her legs, pulled every which way by the gales that are swirling about her. Her hair's being tugged as well, and possibly there's leaves getting stuck in the strands. The air is warm but rough and a shiver goes down her spine, but it's not because of the wind. Rose doesn't quite know why she shivers, but she knows it's not the weather making her do so. It's time now to open her eyes._

_ Without hesitating she snaps her eyes wide, taking in the scene – or what little she can see of it. It's dark, dark and dense and cloudy. There's not a star shining in the sky, but she probably wouldn't be able to see them anyway, the smudgy shapes above her imply a thick canopy of tree leaves and branches. If she turns her head to the sides slightly she can just about make out tree trunks, and she knows that she's standing in the middle of a forest. She can't tell if it's a forest on Earth or some other planet or universe, but she gets the feeling it doesn't matter. Brushing against her toes just slightly, like a feather gliding along her skin, is the edge of a body of water. Each wave tickles her feet, as if it's urging her to come in._

_ Off in the distance, somewhere in the body of water, Rose can just make out a small light. It's not candle light or lamp light or anything familiar, but it's rather a green-blue electric sort of light, and Rose knows that somehow she has to get out there, even if she has to swim for it. It's funny, she doesn't even question it, but just accepts that the light is where she needs to go and where she needs to be._

_ The sound of thunder echoes across the sky above her, filtering in through the tree branches. And then the rain starts to fall, a warm and sudden curtain that slicks over her skin. Rose glances up at the sky once, and then nods to herself. The sheet falls to the ground, leaving her in only her sleep shorts and vest top. A toe reaches out to test the water, and then she takes a breath and dives in head first, plunging in beneath the waves._

_ The water is far deeper than it looks, and Rose blearily looks around at the dark, underwater world. It's quiet down here, and she can see the rain droplets impacting the surface above. Her legs kick out and she propels herself forward. Not being lucky enough to possess a respiratory bypass system, she pops her head above the surface to breathe and finds herself being slammed by the downpour. She blinks roughly, and wipes the water from her eyes, but it doesn't help. There's so much splashing she can hardly see, and that green-blue light doesn't even look to be any nearer. She'll not let herself be defeated, and even though she's not the strongest swimmer, she kicks her legs, pumps her arms, and keeps going._

_ At some point in her swim (she couldn't tell you when – she's lost track of time in this in-between world) she feels something swim below her. It brushes against her thigh, making her pause and then drop below the water, trying to catch what's down there. Whatever it is down there pauses and twists, and Rose can imagine that it's looking at her. If this…creature looks this blurry and vague to her, a dark mass of limbs and shadow and not much else, she has to wonder what she looks like to it. There's no feeling of malevolence about the creature though, just the feeling of something being as lost as she is. And if they're both lost, then they should both be trying to get towards that little pinprick of light in the distance. She swims forward a few feet and reaches out, fingers scrabbling for purchase. Eventually they wrap around what could be a limb, and she begins to pull the creature forward. The creature isn't helpless though, and Rose finds that it can keep up easily with her._

_ They swim together for a while, a mess of tangled arms and legs. It's a stumbling, staccato sort of swim, but it always moves forward. It's a fight for them to keep a hold of each other, sometimes her hand will slip off, and she'll move around in a panic until she finds something that resembles a kicking foot and grabs onto that. Likewise, the creature (who she is starting to suspect is humanoid, the limbs feel more like legs and arms than anything else) also keeps losing its grip on her but always manages to reach out and grasp on again wherever it can, whether it be her leg, the waistband of her shorts, or in one memorable incident, her hair, making her gasp with pain. Eventually their hands find each other through the murky water, and they grab hold and don't let go, determined to make it. _

_When Rose pops her head up out of the water again she can see that the light is nearer. It looks more like a column now, shooting up towards the sky and reflecting off of the leafy ceiling. There's something so oddly familiar about that green-blue light, but for the life of her she can't place it right now. Her mind's so occupied with surviving and making it there that nothing else can slip through. She squeezes her companion's hand, silently telling the creature that they're getting closer, and plunges beneath the water again. They both find it easier to swim below the waves, when they can't see where they're going it's easier to go forward. She feels the creature's other hand, the one that isn't grasping hers, push at her back, propelling them both forward._

_Finally, her bare foot scrapes against sand and rocks, and she stumbles, letting go of the creature's hand and collapsing onto the bank of the island. She coughs and splutters, her lungs not built to handle such strenuous activity. Her whole body heaves as she coughs, practically curling into a foetal position on the sand. God, there's not a part of her body that doesn't hurt. The storm is still raging as well, the warm rain and winds pelting her skin. But there's an internal part of her that distinctly points out that it was worth it. Somewhere behind her she hears the creature having a similar reaction, rough coughs and gasps as it chokes up water from inside its lungs._

_When she feels like she can move without doing any more damage to herself, Rose tries to turn over to see how the creature is doing. But she gets very distracted in the process when her eyes lock onto the source of the green-blue light. She pushes herself to her feet awkwardly, doing an odd sort of shuffle as she tries to regain her balance. She gets her legs back under her quickly though, and takes her first good look._

_About fifty yards away is a tall glowing column. That's all, really, simple, sleek curves going impossibly high up into the sky. She can't tell what it's made of, because the entire length of it is emanating with that intense green-blue light that makes her want to hide her eyes and run away. But she knows she can't, because she needs to go there. That's the goal. And so she begins to run towards it._

_Rose's legs still aren't sure, and every so often her hands scrape against the sand as she falls more than runs forward. It could be the rain making the sand slippery, it could be her weak legs, but it doesn't matter. She can hear her companion's soft footfalls in the sand behind her, and is happy that it's following her lead. She knows the way now, and has no intention of diverting from it anytime soon._

_It's the longest fifty yards of her life, and she's run for longer times and further distances. But finally she reaches the glowing column, her outstretched hand smacking into it. She can feel cool and smooth crystal beneath her fingers, a nice contrast to the summer storm raging around them. The water, the storm, the forest and the light, they're the key parts of this, aren't they? There's such a symbolic significance there, just beyond her fingertips. But why can't she quite reach it?_

_The creature slams into her back, a warm and wet weight, and she sees a very human-looking hand smack onto the crystal above hers. Before she can twist around to see her companion the light expands and there's a sudden rushing feeling that draws them both deep inside to the heart of the glowing column._

With a sharp gasp Rose slams into wakefulness, sitting bolt upright. Her hands rub roughly at her eyes, not quite knowing why she's woken up crying. Her chest heaves, breathing still not quite normal, and she wonders if that's sweat that she feels on the back of her neck or the remnants of the water and the storm she had just been through. It had to have been a dream, she knows, but dreams rarely, if ever feel like that, even in her wide experience with so many things.

"Rose? You all right?" a quiet and sleepy voice asks from next to her, and her sense of place snaps back with an unpleasant jolt. She stares around the sedately decorated room, sees the watery early morning light filtering in through the sheer curtains. Right, Christmas Eve. Louise's parents had been kind enough to invite the wayward girls down to New York to spend the Christmas holiday with them, and she could hardly say no to the eager look in Gemma's eye when she mentioned it. The two girls are sharing a guest room (they didn't have to, but after Gemma had snuck into Rose's bed the first two nights they were there it didn't make sense to keep her in her own room when it could have been used by one of the many guests who were there for the holiday) and Gemma's currently sitting up to stare worriedly into her sister's face.

"Yeah, just a bad dream," Rose says, dropping her hands down and rubbing her sweaty palms against the down comforter. She doesn't notice Gemma's eyes widen as she looks at her, scrambling around on the sheets to kneel between her legs.

"Are you sure you're all right?" she asks again, making Rose lift her head and give her a puzzled look.

There's a knock on the door and Louise pokes her head in. "Everything okay in here?" she asks. "Thought I heard something going on."

"We're fine," Gemma says in a rush, moving herself so that she's blocking Rose's view of the door. "Just a nightmare," she continues, not giving Rose a chance to speak.

"Okay," Louise says with a nod. "It's still early yet, no one else is really up, but I've got a pot of coffee going downstairs so if you want any just come on down."

"All right, thanks Lou," Rose says quietly, still glaring at her sister's back. The door closes again and she turns Gemma towards her. "What the hell was that about?" she asks. "I could handle myself, you know."

Gemma shakes her head. "I don't know if you're okay. Look in the mirror." The little girl waves at the large mirror opposite the bed, and Rose follows her gaze. And then it hits her why Gemma was acting so funny. She scrambles towards the end of the bed, trying to get a better look at just what's going on with her eyes.

It isn't an obvious difference, but there seems to be a thin film across her eyes, making the whites shine softly with the same green-blue light from her dream. The irises are an even brighter green-blue, but as she blinks the colours fade back to her usual hazel. Her mouth drops open, and she shares an incredulous look with Gemma in the mirror. "Oh boy," the two girls mutter in unison.

* * *

The Doctor stares up at the glowing rotor, arms crossed over his chest and a stern look on his face. If he were so inclined, he'd be tapping his foot in an impatient fashion as well. "What. Was. That?" he asks the rotor slowly. Whatever that vision was that he had just experienced, it came directly from his frankly magnificent, but also temperamental and extremely puzzling ship. He knows it wasn't a dream, Time Lords don't dream like that, but whatever it was he'd never felt anything like it before. He could feel the sand beneath his toes, the warm rain sluicing over his skin, and the wind pulling him in all directions. He felt the impact of his body with the water as he plunged right into it, and felt the other body in the water moving against his. It wasn't clear who the figure was, but he recalls very easily the push and pull of the two of them moving as one towards the light in the centre, which was obviously the TARDIS's very symbolic representation of herself. And as he raced towards the TARDIS, watching the other person run ahead of him, he could have sworn that it was Rose, but that would be far too much to hope for.

The TARDIS doesn't respond to his question, just hums and whirs her rotor up and down a few times. "No, seriously, I'd like an explanation for whatever it was you just did," he demands again. It isn't at all unusual for the TARDIS to communicate with him through their bond, but in all the years she's had him she's never made him see something like that and so intensely. He'd swear that his feet were still wet and he had sticky sand in his toes. It'd gunk up the inside of his shoes, that's for sure. And none of that does anything to help him figure out the meaning of the vision, which is still a total mystery.

The only feeling he can get from his ship is one of smug satisfaction, and he resists the urge to grab for the mallet. It'd only serve to make her even madder at him.

"Doctor!" Donna's voice echoes down the corridor, making him twist to see what's happening. "The dishwasher's on fire _again!_"

He groans just a bit and pinches the bridge of his nose. Bloody thing had been misbehaving all week. Turning back to the rotor, he waggles a finger at it. "Don't think I'm done with you," he says before dashing down the corridor, being sure to grab a fire extinguisher on the way.

* * *

"It's a good thing you were covered up by the blankets," Gemma comments as Rose watches the green-blue film fade from her eyes, "your marks have all come out again."

Rose looks down to see the swirling handwriting standing out sharply on the pale skin of her forearms. She can tell that it's not just in that spot, but all of the words on her body are out in the open. She takes a deep breath and sits back on her haunches, taking a few seconds to make sure everything blends back into skin again. If they were at home she'd just leave them out, but here in this guest room anyone could come waltzing in, and how to explain to them why she suddenly looks like the tattooed lady?

"You feeling better now?" Gemma asks, curling up against her sister's side.

"Yeah," Rose says, stroking the back of her left hand nervously. Her fingers pause as her brow wrinkles in deep thought. "Actually, I feel fine, physically at least. Except for the glowy eye thing. But that's faded now." She begins to chew on her thumbnail, a nervous twitch left over from ages back. "The weirdest thing was the dream," she continues, mumbling around her finger.

"Was it a nightmare?" Gemma says, scrunching up her nose. "I don't like getting nightmares at all."

Rose shakes her head. "No, not quite. Dunno how to describe it really."

"D'you know what it meant? One of the girls in my class says that everything that happens in a dream is because of something else that going on in your head."

"No idea," Rose sighs. Then she gets an idea, gets a determined look in her eyes, and kicks the blankets off of her legs. "But knowing Lou, she's got one of those dream books stashed somewhere, you know, like the meaning of dreams or some crap like that. She's into all of that weird stuff." She slides off the bed and jams her feet into some slippers. "I'll be right back."

Even after only being at Louise's grand family home for a couple of days, she's found that the whole lot of them are extremely friendly and didn't often stand on propriety, so it's more than acceptable for her to go downstairs in her pyjamas. It's a bit cold moving around in just a vest top and flannel shorts, so she moves quickly and follows the scent of coffee all the way to the kitchen.

Louise is hunched over a marble countertop in the centre of the room, coffee clutched in one hand and a newspaper in the other. Her grandmother's opposite her, coffee ignored as she pounds a dough-like mass into submission. "Oh, hey," Louise says, looking up as Rose walks into the room. "Help yourself."

"Don't mind if I do." As she prepares her drink she begins to talk. "Lou, by any chance you don't have any dream analysis books or things like that?"

Louise frowns, tapping her fingernails on the black marble. "No, can't say that I do."

"Drat," Rose mutters. "I was hoping it'd help me shake that nightmare off."

"Sorry, but I got rid of all of those books when I left for college." Suddenly Louise straightens up and drops her paper. "Ooh, but I've got an even better idea." She runs over to a distinctive pile in the corner of the kitchen, a mix of shopping bags and suitcases.

Her grandmother shoots her a look over the top of her glasses. "You need to take those upstairs today," she says (for the fifth time – the bags have been sitting there since Louise walked in the door and dropped them in favour of giving Rose and Gemma the dime tour of the place).

"I will, Gram," she says, bending to rummage through a backpack buried under the unwashed laundry. "Ah, here we go!" She holds up a slim book and shoves it into Rose's surprised hands.

"Symbols encyclopaedia?" she reads from the cover, wondering why this has been foisted on her.

"Textbook from an old college class of mine. Far better way to figure out what your dreams mean than some brainless dream book," Louise says. "You know, a dream book will tell you that a boat means journeys over water are coming or crap like that. What this will tell you is all the different ways boats have been used to symbolize certain things over time. So to speak."

Rose winces a bit, hefting the book in her hand. "Sounds like an awful lot of work just for a nightmare."

"Oh, come on. What do you want, deep and meaningful or cheap and easy?"

"Cheap and easy."

Louise rolls her eyes and sits back down. "Just give it a shot."

Rose looks down at the book again. Even though she says it's just a nightmare, the bigger part of her is saying that it's not just an everyday dream. So maybe a little more in-depth analysis won't hurt. "What the hell," she shrugs. "Thanks, Lou."

"Not a problem." Rose begins to walk off, but Louise's yelp stops her and makes her turn around.

"I want that book back, Mari," she says, waggling a finger at Rose. "That thing's my bible."

This time her grandmother throws a clump of dough at her along with a dirty look. "Don't blaspheme, Louise," she chides her.

Louise just groans and Rose laughs as she walks back upstairs.

A half an hour later the girls are still lying on the bed, though the frustration level in the room has risen noticeably. Rose is punching a pillow repeatedly and Gemma's lying back with the book covering her face. "This is not helping," Rose sighs, resisting the urge to whack herself in the head with the pillow. "There's too many interpretations for each thing."

Gemma lifts the book off her face and flips through a few pages. "Well, it looks like the thunder you heard could mean the 'union of the sky god and earth mother', whatever that means," she mutters.

Rose grabs the book from her and finds the entry she was reading. "Yeah, but it also says here that thunder could symbolize divine anger, and I know the dream didn't feel like that." She tosses the book onto a different pillow and runs a hand through her hair, wincing when it gets caught on a few tangles. "Some of the stuff we read about the water may apply, that whole thing about diving into the waters is to search for the secrets of the ultimate mystery, blah, blah, blah…" she continues, attempting to work out the knot with her fingers.

"Yeah, but it also means death," Gemma says, "which can't be good."

"Not what I'd have chosen to dream about, no."

Rose falls back on the mattress, her head hanging off of the foot of it. "There was something so strange about that dream," she sighs, ignoring the blood rushing into her face. "It felt too real to be a dream. It's almost like…"

(Much to other alien species' chagrin, the human brain is one of the most complicated and brilliant computers ever invented. Aside from having many other functions, it also remembers events and occurrences, stores them in the memory banks like a paper tossed into a file cabinet, and pulls them out when necessary or when it sees something that strikes it as important and can connect it to an event in the past that may have been brushed off as negligible at the time, but in hindsight is absolutely, fantastically, important.)

"Almost like what?" Gemma asks, shifting positions to lay next to Rose and hang her head off of the bed as well.

Rose sighs and chews on a ragged thumbnail, a sign of deep thought for her. "Remember when we went to that planet Artagon? S'where we got the gate key to get back here."

"Yeah."

"I had a dream while I was there, such a vivid and real dream that it didn't seem like a dream. The Doctor was there, but it wasn't him. He was using his alias and pretending to be a human, which was odd, because even when he's going undercover for something he's absolutely awful at acting like a normal human. This dream that woke me up felt a lot like that one, now that I think about it," Rose says, twisting her head to look at Gemma whose tangled curls are a weird nimbus around her head now as she hangs off the bed, suspended in space.

"Was the Doctor in this dream too?"

She shakes her head. "No. At least, I don't think he was. There was another creature there, one that felt like a humanoid, but I couldn't tell you if it was him or not…" her voice trails off as the computer in her head makes an important connection, leaping back and forth in time and piecing together little bits of information. "Oh. Wait a minute."

"What is it?" her sister asks, obviously concerned.

Suddenly Rose smiles, one of those smiles that only those close to her can figure out what it means. This one tells Gemma that her big sister has latched onto something very important that is surprisingly good. "It just hit me. That big light I was trying to get to in the dream, the column on the island – the same colour that my eyes ended up flashing when I woke up – it just hit me. The colour is the exact same colour as the rotor in the TARDIS, the one in the console room that was able to take us all across the universe."

Gemma bites her lip, not sure how to interpret this one. "Is that a good thing or a bad thing?"

"I'm not sure," Rose shakes her head, but smiles again. It's a softer smile this time, but it still transforms her face, suffusing it with indescribable feelings. "But the TARDIS has always helped me in the past. Sometimes I had to convince her, sometimes with a bit of force, but she always did because whatever we did was meant to help the Doctor, and neither one of us had a problem with that. If she or something that symbolizes her is popping up in my dream, I don't think that's bad at all."

* * *

The TARDIS just chuckles to herself again and basks in the feeling of a job well done. Truth be told she had been smacking herself in the head for a couple of days now, ever since she had finally realized something very, very important that she should have caught onto positively ages ago. She shouldn't have been surprised at all that the feeling she had been keeping an eye on for over a year now was coming from none other than Rose Tyler, who had somehow managed to unlock the back door to the universe and slip in quietly. She still has no idea how Rose accomplished this though, which is a true credit to her, being able to surprise and mystify a TARDIS like that.

The TARDIS also doesn't quite understand why Rose is still so deeply connected to her. Every person who takes a trip inside her is affected in some way or another, but she's never seen a reaction like this. Usually it's an excess of artron energy, or a souped up immune system, things along those lines. But for a human to be able to psychically link to a TARDIS, and over such a great distance? Practically unheard of. The only theory she has is still a rough one, and she needs to meditate on it some more before she decides if it has worth or not.

And she has no bloody clue as to how the three of them were able to link up like that and share that vision, but she has to admit that it was one of the better ideas of hers. Even though her dear Doctor didn't quite believe what he was seeing, that doesn't mean that the seed hasn't been planted. The TARDIS decides to give them a few days to get ready (even though they won't know what they're getting ready for) and then she'll take over the navigation. One good thing about that shared vision is that she now knows exactly where Rose is going to be. And it's going to be one hell of an interesting time.

* * *


	4. Chapter 3: I've Been Down This Road

**Three: I've Been Down This Road Before, Now I'm Coming Back for More**

The box in Jack's hands rattles ominously, making the Doctor look askance at it then take a quick step to the side. "Do I really want to know the details as to how you acquired _that_?" he asks, leading them down yet another staircase to the basement levels of the Alexandria Library.

"No, you don't," Jack says, holding the box a safe distance from his body. "I just want to get it out of my possession as soon as possible."

The Doctor just shakes his head and takes them through the maze that is the basement levels of the Alexandria Library. He was certainly surprised to get the call from Jack saying that he needed to dispose of something highly sensitive that Torchwood had come across, and he couldn't think of a better man or alien to do the job. With 'flattery' like that how could he say no? So with a roll of his eyes he tosses Jack into the TARDIS and takes them to the 50th century library to see an old friend of his who is an expert at moving things.

A few twists and turns down a dark corridor later they arrive at a door. It's a rather unassuming door, a plank of anachronistic wood with iron hinges, a stark contrast to the white marble that is the upper floors of the library. The Doctor reaches out a fist and pounds on the door. "Edgar? I know you're in there! Open up!"

The door is pulled open suddenly, making the Doctor take a quick step to keep his balance. The face peering out is an older one, full of wrinkles and character. It sports a pair of half-moon shaped glasses sliding down a button nose, and the man's white hair is pulled back into a small ponytail. Edgar leans against the doorjamb and stares at the Doctor, eyebrows arching above the glasses. "Now correct me if I'm wrong," Edgar says, "but I could have sworn you had a different face the last time you were here."

"Regenerated. Again," the Doctor explains, one hand moving to scratch the back of his neck nervously.

"Not sure I want to know how many times you've done that by now," Edgar sighs, opening up the door wider. "Come on in."

"You've moved up in the world," the Doctor says, impressed with his surroundings. The large room is paneled in the same dark wood as the door, and sconces set pink flame flickering on the walls. The contents of the room are a jumble of parts and baubles from all over the universe, the ingredients of all good jiggery-pokery. However, one wall is dedicated solely to old scrolls and books, crumbling and crackling with age.

"I got a promotion. Perks of keeping my nose clean for an extended period of time," Edgar sniffs, setting down at a large workbench covered in curls of silvery wire and a stack of teetering books in the corner of it. "So why am I all of a sudden graced with your presence?" he says, shifting the books so they don't fall off. "Although you never give warning when you decide to visit anyway," he mutters under his breath, making Jack tilt his head in agreement.

The Doctor waves in Jack's general direction. "My friend here has something he needs to get rid of, and fast." Jack thumps the box on the work bench. As soon as it hits the surface it rattles again, making Edgar lean forward to get a better look. He grabs a ruler and uses it to lift the lid of the box, eyebrows arching towards the ceiling once more when he finally sees what's inside of. "Good lord, haven't seen one of these things in ages. Is that alive?"

"Either that or it's a zombie alien, take your pick. Do you think you'd have someone who could take it?" Jack asks, holding the box firmly with both hands.

"Edgar here can fence just about anything in the universe, and coming from me that's saying something," the Doctor says, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning against the far side of the workbench. "Speaking of which what have you been up to lately? Jack and I were here a couple of months ago only to find that you were out of town."

The man snorts to himself and picks up what appears to be an old fashioned magnifying glass with a few bits and bobs of glass and crystal wires looped around the metal outside of it. "Was sent to do a job, by the Library no less," he says, pushing a button on the handle of the glass and making it glow with a bright pale blue light. Using the ruler to prop up the lid of Jack's box, he leans in closer with the glass at his eye. "Ended up on Earth, sometime around the start of the second millennium common era."

"Not far off from my usual haunt," Jack murmurs.

"From my understanding it's an interesting time to be on Earth, that's for sure," Edgar agrees. "Long story short, I had to retrieve a couple of books that shouldn't have been there. I spent a few months living as a real life monk," he chuckles.

"You, a monk?" the Doctor says with a slight bit of incredulity, but then his face morphs into a more pensive look. "Actually, I can easily see that," he comments, looking around at the cluttered workroom which really isn't much more than a glorified bachelor pad.

Edgar shoots him quite the dirty look. "You're the last one to talk. When were you last shagged rotten?" he asks, turning to look at him in expectation of an answer.

The Doctor can tell that Jack is also very interested in the answer to that question as well, going by the inquisitive look he is shooting his way. He just arches an eyebrow at the two of them, daring them to challenge his non-response. Besides, he knows exactly when he was last 'shagged rotten', and who with. It was none of their damn business.

Jack and Edgar trade a look and it's obvious they've come to the conclusion that the Doctor isn't going to offer up any information in regards to that question. Edgar shrugs as if to say 'worth a shot', and turns back to the box, hitting another button on the glass that makes the light flash on and off at a steady rate. "One of the books I had to bring back had a story in there that I could have sworn described you," Edgar eventually says.

This makes the Doctor stand up a bit straighter. "Really? What did it say?"

Edgar shakes his head. "Can't remember the details, but the book's over there below the window if you're interested. It's the skinny black volume." As the Doctor walks over to get it he can hear Edgar continuing in the background. "Used the story to scare the living crap out of a kid though back on Earth, so the trip wasn't a total waste."

"That's a bit cruel, isn't it?" Jack says.

"Possibly, but I don't think it traumatized him too badly. It's weird, I'm not even sure how that book got there, the damn thing seems older than time itself, or at least the Time Lord over there…"

The Doctor tunes them out as he picks the book out of the haphazard pile it's currently in. It's so nondescript it doesn't even have a title, but the second page reveals a list of all the tales that are contained within. He scrolls through the titles, recognizing familiar legends, some cloudy memories from his own childhood oh so long ago, but there's the name of one tale that leaps out at him with the force of a supernova – 'The Bitter Pill'. He quickly flips to the page and begins to read.

Sure enough, he is intimately familiar with the tale, how the two strangers landed on the dead world that orbited a black hole and encountered the Beast in the Pit. He glides past his own actions and instead focuses on Rose, and how she destroyed the putrid soul of the Beast. A soft smile crosses his face.

_ I've seen fake gods and bad gods and demi gods and would-be gods…Out of all that, out of that whole pantheon if I believe in one thing, just one thing,__I believe in _her_. _

"Hey, Doctor?" Edgar calls out, pulling his attention back to the small crowd huddling around the box. "I've got another shipment of Zidraxian ink here. You want some more while I've got it in stock? I know you took some with you last time you were here."

The Doctor snaps the book shut with one hand, gaze darting from Edgar to Jack and back again. "You know what, I think I'm going to take a wander through the library. It's been a while, maybe they'll have updated the collection a bit," he says loftily and walks out of the room, discretely slipping the small book into a pocket in his coat.

As the Doctor leaves, Jack trades a look with Edgar. "Now maybe it's just me, but did you get the impression that we were just blown off big time?"

Edgar nods, tapping the ruler lightly against the table. "He did that last time he was here too. However, when an old as dirt Time Lord like that brings a young blonde cutie into this place, he should realize he's going to get questions."

* * *

It isn't until the Doctor ends up perched on the top step of a stairway high in the upper echelons of the library does he realize that he's stopped on the very same stairway where he and Rose had sat all those years ago, with those misguided books about Time Lords right on the platform above his head. 'Figures,' he thinks, dashing a hand back through his hair. He's not going to let himself dwell on it, just going to take a few minutes to reorder his brain and then get moving with things. Jack has to be back in Cardiff as fast as possible – from what the Doctor understands Jack's team is still in a bit of a state and he doesn't want to leave them alone for too long if he doesn't have to.

'How times have changed,' the Doctor muses thoughtfully with a small quirk of his lips. 'We are all new, every one of us.' A fleeting thought goes through his head, wondering about how Rose has been doing lost on the other side, and not for the first time he hopes she's doing well, leading a fantastic life. With a deep breath he clears his mind, then leans back on his hands and stares out at the gleaming white arches and stairways of the Library, preferring not to think at all. A rare occurrence for him, true, but sometimes if he tries really hard it can happen.

Eventually Jack comes trotting up the stairway directly towards him, and it's not at all hard for the Doctor to see the concerned look in his eyes. Really, he's fine though. It's taken a while to get to this point, but he's not going to break. Not anymore. He misses her like nothing he's ever known before, and would love to make the impossible possible and see her again, even if just for a second, but he's not going to give up and lay down and die. Life keeps moving and changing, and so must he. A hard truth learned by experience, but isn't that why never stops and keeps traveling, so that he can keep seeing new things and always learn more? "Everything all right, Jack?" the Doctor calls out, not moving from his perch on the step.

"Yeah, it's fine. Edgar's contacting one of his buyers to see if they'll take my little toy off our hands," Jack says, stopping a few steps below where the Doctor's perched. "Everything all right with you?" he tosses back.

"Yep," the Doctor muses, staring out past Jack and at the other platforms. "I'm doing rather well, I think."

Jack shoves his hands in the pocket of the coat, looking almost like a guilty little boy for the briefest of moments. "Edgar mentioned that the last time you were here you were with a blonde…" he trails off, no doubt to let the Doctor's mind fill in the rest of the blanks.

"Yeah, I took Rose here once. Years ago now, really," he says, glancing behind him at the rows of books on this specific platform. No regrets taking her here, that's for sure, especially with what came out of this. Unknowingly that soft smile crosses his face again, making Jack wonder what exactly the Time Lord's thinking. "Libraries weren't really her thing," he continues.

Without much warning, the stairway begins to rattle beneath them, making Jack grab onto the banister and the Doctor leap to his feet. "What was that?" the Doctor asks, looking over the railing and seeing the confusion and panic from the people rushing around the platforms below them.

"No idea, but whatever it was can't be good." From somewhere off in the distance they hear a creaking, followed by something that sounds like the sharp tinkle of breaking glass. Jack looks over at the Doctor, eyebrow arched. "You can't go anywhere without attracting trouble, can you?"

"This has absolutely nothing to do with me," the Doctor frowns. "Suppose it can't hurt to take a look while we're here though. Don't want another Alexandria Library to burn to the ground, do we?" The two men trade a look, nod at each other, and then run down the stairway towards the building commotion, leaving the platform full of books behind them.


	5. Chapter 4: Your Lamps Will Call Me Home

**Four: Your Lamps Will Call Me Home…And so it's There my Homage's Due**

A quick peek into Gemma's room tells Rose that the little girl is safely and soundly asleep. They have both developed the ability to fall asleep just about anywhere and in nearly any sort of conditions, given their travels all around this universe and the parallel one. However, Gemma has the luxury of the sleep of the untroubled, her young mind not kept awake at nights by all of the worries of the world. Rose isn't as lucky, although the insomnia is nowhere near as frequent as it used to be.

Tonight she is wide awake, her mind buzzing with possibilities. She pulls Gemma's door shut carefully, not wanting to disturb her sleep. Nodding to herself she does the rounds of the small apartment, making sure all of the lights are off and the front door is locked. For what she's planning, privacy and silence is going to be necessary. She heads into her own bedroom, closing the door behind her.

Even a month later, the odd not-quite-a-dream she'd had while at Louise's house is still haunting her. Not in a bad way though, but rather in an intriguing way. If that really had been the TARDIS she was dreaming about and connecting with, who's to say she couldn't connect again? What had happened felt so _real_, not just some collection of pictures her head dreamed up in the midst of a sound sleep. Rose lights the few small candles she had set out on her dresser – Priya says that they help her focus while meditating, so Rose figures it's worth a shot now. Anything to help her concentrate on that one single thought of _connection_ will be a benefit. There's a stack of books on the bedside table, borrowed from the local library and filled with dodgy information about so-called psychic abilities (they've been collecting dust for the past two weeks, not touched since Rose discovered that the information inside was too far-fetched, even for her).

Rose walks over to the window in her bedroom, staring out for a few seconds. Below her she can see Commonwealth Avenue, buzzing with activity even at nine at night. Stores and bars are still lit with neon signs of all colors, doors swinging with invitation, and even in the cold Boston January people are spilling out of places and walking to their next destination. Cars whiz by below her, and the public train passes by, the green and white outside highlighted by the dull florescent lights coming from within. She twists the rod on the blinds, shutting off the outside view and leaving her alone in her small bedroom, lit only by the tea lights reflecting in the mirror propped up in the corner of the room.

Rose had never considered herself remotely psychic before, but so many odd experiences over the past years make her wonder just what had happened in her head. Was this the result of spending years living on the TARDIS? It's possible. The Doctor had said more than once that the ship was alive and could get inside her head. Maybe living in the TARDIS for a while made the connection more permanent? She also suspects she may have done some serious damage to the TARDIS once by ripping her open and looking inside of it ages back, but the memories are fuzzy. All she can recall is an odd sort of singing. But it hadn't seemed to do her any harm.

Funnily enough, she can hear that odd and ancient singing ringing through her head at this moment, having appeared seemingly out of nowhere. She wrinkles her brow and walks over to the tea lights, watching as a sudden breeze sends the flames horizontal. 'Oh, now that's weird,' she thinks, backing up a couple of steps until her legs bump into the bed. A quick glance to the side tells her the window is firmly shut, and whatever's coming from the heater is sluggish and not all that warm, nothing like this summery breeze currently whipping around her. Thinking fast, she relaxes her mind, attempting to let her consciousness stretch wide and reach out past its usual fleshly barriers. Without any sort of warning the music surges and consumes Rose, making her eyes roll back and her body lose the will to stand upright. She's unconscious before her body hits the bed, her mind wandering somewhere off in the stars…

_This time Rose finds herself standing on a flat, grassy-green plain, with a few decorative rolling hills off in the distance. It's night time again, but instead of thunder and lightning the sky is a deep black blanket, scattered with stars and unrecognizable constellations. Reminds her of England, she thinks with a slight bit of amusement, although not the England she grew up in. "That was fast," she murmurs to herself, not quite believing that she's made contact this quickly. Of course, it may not have been the TARDIS she's reached – she could have found something far more dangerous, which wouldn't be all that surprising to her jeopardy-friendly self. It doesn't feel harmful at the moment though, so going with the flow of things seems to be the best option._

_ She pulls her eyes away from the horizon and begins to spin on the spot, seeing what's all around her. It's when she turns around fully does she see the garden wall behind her. It's about ten feet high, made of bricks, and curving off into the distance. It's draped in a dark green plant that could be but most likely isn't ivy, curling over the top of the wall like tendrils of hair caressing a bare shoulder. Rose takes a couple of steps towards it, hearing a faint humming coming from somewhere beyond it. 'This had better be the right place,' she thinks, slightly nervous with each soft step._

_ When she gets to the garden wall she reaches out a tentative hand to pull some of the ivy-like plant away._

_ And then she laughs._

_ Loudly._

_ (Loud enough to shatter the stillness of the night, in any case. But anyone would laugh with happiness if they'd found themselves in Rose's position.) _

_When she pulls back the leaves, she finds a door set into the brick wall. If it were an ordinary wooden door, she probably wouldn't have had that reaction. However, while this door made of wood and iron fixings does have an ordinary look about it, the bright blue colour it is painted speaks of something far different than ordinary. And so Rose laughs, slouching against the door with a rush of giddy joy._

_Eventually she bites back the giggles and reaches for the brass handle on the door. A quick twist and she finds herself inside the wall. There's ivy covered paths stretching off to either side of her, and barely a meter from her nose is another wall – like a maze or a labyrinth , she thinks. Rather appropriate for the TARDIS. Every so often a torch with orange and red flames peeks out from the ivy, lighting the way. Rose shrugs once, and spins on her heel a few times, enough to make herself dizzy. When she comes to a halt she's facing the path that is to the left of her, and begins to walk down it. It's as good as any._

_She follows the path along the twisting roads of the labyrinth, feeling the tendrils brush against her back and snagging on her nightgown, the one Louise had given her for Christmas, all long and white and flowy (there was the unspoken hope in Lou's present that Rose would use it on a night when she had a date who was worthy of being taken home. In Rose's head a night to meet the TARDIS is as good an occasion as any, so maybe it's a sign that she imagines herself wearing this). The nightgown is too delicate to withstand much more of this though, so she pauses a minute and imagines herself a coat. With a blink she finds herself wearing a floor length duster that bears a remarkable resemblance to the Doctor's usual coat, but it's a little more appropriate for a feminine figure. Rose giggles to herself and continues on, making a right when she sees a gap in the ivy leading to another branching road lit by those torches._

_Not long after that, she comes to a bridge in the middle of the path. It's a skinny, arched, grey stone structure, about three feet in length with knee high railings. Rose crouches down to peer beneath the bridge and finds a stream beneath it. It's running somewhere, flowing through a small hole in the ivy, and feels fresh and cold against her fingers. 'Water again', she thinks, gliding her hand across the top of the stream. 'Popped up last time too, but it's different now, more controlled, or restrained. Water here, water there…plants, greenery as well. No lightning or a storm, but we've got fire. They're similar, right? I've got to keep going. There's no other option.'_

_She straightens up and extends one bare foot towards the bridge, feeling the stones slick and worn beneath her feet. Up and then down the short arch, sliding the last foot onto the grass. "That wasn't so bad," she nods. With a quick shrug of her shoulders she continues on, taking the path further and further._

_The more Rose walks, the more she notices that the path is moving in a vaguely circular pattern, possibly drawing her towards what could be the centre of the maze. The music is still at a low hum and permeating the night air around her, but it's a comfort rather than unnerving. There's something so familiar about it, but she can't put her finger on it just yet._

'That's right, I sang a song and the Daleks ran away.'

_She mulls over that line as she crosses yet another small stone bridge. She hadn't had the time to think about it at the time, barely two minutes after that did the Doctor explode and regenerate in front of her and by the time her world had been righted again the words had flown right out of her head. Rose stops and falls to her knees, nearly slumping face-forward onto the grass, her hands tugging at the roots of her hair. There's so many tiny little pieces floating around, all these bits of information that could make a coherent whole, but she can't figure it out. God, she knows she's so close, but it's just not fitting right yet! She screams through gritted teeth, feeling the frustration wash over her._

_Eventually Rose turns her head up and stares into the flickering flame of the nearest torch. No, she can't break, not here. Of course she's close – this is the TARDIS, or something very close to it. She may not know the whole yet, but she's got some of the parts, and there's no safer place in the universe than this. She pushes to her feet, scrubs a stray tear off her cheek, and goes forward once more. Just a minor setback; it was an understandable occurrence. Almost expected, really. No one, not even the Doctor was perfect, and sometimes there are little roadblocks tossed into the way that they just have to move past._

_And so Rose smiles to herself, and starts to walk again. Then her pace picks up and she runs over grass and stone, taking the curves of the maze at top speed. The circles are growing smaller and smaller, making her a bit dizzy, but also giving her the sense that she's coming close to the centre._

_Finally she slides down one last stone bridge, coat and nightgown flying out behind her, and comes to a stop at another door. There's nothing beyond this – no alternate path, no turn in the road or gaps in the leaves. This last door, a sheet of a silvery metallic material glinting at her through the leaves, is all there is. So what else is there to do than to go through it? "Here goes nothing," Rose mutters, reaching out to grab the ornately carved handle. With a deep, fortifying breath, she pushes the door open._

_The door opens into the sky, and as soon as it's fully open it disappears, leaving Rose standing on a mountainside. There are traces of snow and red grass beneath her toes, while a chilly wind tears at her clothing and her hair. She squints into the orange sunlight cast by twin suns, staring over the hills and slopes covered in silver-leafed trees until her eyes light on a city enclosed in a massive glass dome._

_Rose gasps, the sight before her triggering a precious memory in her head. "I recognize this place," she says, reaching a hand out to touch the silver tree nearest to her, with the touch of one finger making a sound that could have been bell-like but was far more alien. "This is Gallifrey, isn't it? The Doctor had told me about it, described it in detail, but I never imagined…"_

_And then it really hits her, so much so that she has to sit down on the grass beneath the tree and just stare out at the vista. "This is your heart, isn't it?" she says, petting the grass as if it were a sentient creature (well if this is part of the TARDIS, it would be alive, so she didn't feel at all bad for her petting). "The last place in the universe for Gallifrey to truly exist, and it's right inside of you. Your heart and your home." She looks down at the grass and smiles. "You're brilliant, you know that?" There's a little feeling inside of her head, nothing strong and overwhelming, but it's there. And it's radiating something akin to pride with just a touch of smugness. It was a merited collection of feelings, as this was so fantastic a sight that it could only be real, not just some figment of her imagination. "You're welcome," Rose replies._

"_Can you understand me?" she asks, this time directing her gaze outward. There's no people moving around out there, the city appears to be abandoned, but she wonders if the Doctor, in one of his many regenerations, had sat on this very same slope and stared out at his home planet in ages past. Oh, she really hopes that this isn't just some terrifically real dream. She doesn't know what she'd do if it were. It was the time to make the best of it though, that was for certain._

_Another feeling that appears to answer in the affirmative echoes within her head. There are no words in the feeling, nothing concrete for her human brain to grasp onto, but she thinks she's got the translation down. It wouldn't be the first time she's worked at figuring out the nearly untranslatable; she's got the marks all over her body to prove it. "Where are you?" Rose asks, thinking that possibly the TARDIS and the Doctor are somewhere on Earth in her time period and that maybe, just maybe, she could hop on a plane and see him by the week's end._

_Much to Rose's chagrin, the only answer she gets could best be interpreted as 'give it time'._

"_I've spent time, thank you very much," Rose says with a grimace. "Don't know how much more I can give." It's a bit of a lie though – she knows she'll keep looking until her dying day, even if it's all for nothing. The hope of possibly finding him again gives her something, keeps her going and she can't give that up, not for anything._

'_Give it time,' echoes through her head again, however she notices that the smug tone is back, making her shoot the ground a very sceptical look._

"_All right, can tell I'm not going to get any more out of you," Rose sighs, looking up at the silver leafed tree above her head, watching as it gleams and shimmers in the orange sunlight and hearing the music that followed her all throughout the maze float through the branches. "Well, if you can't tell me where you are, maybe you can pass along a message for me?" she asks hopefully. Not waiting for a response from the TARDIS, she relays her message. "Tell him—tell him I'm here. I made it back, and he'll never believe how," she laughs, thinking of everything that they scrawled over her skin and just how meaningful it eventually turned out to be. "And tell him that one of these days, not long now because I'm stubborn like that, I'm going to find him. I promise," she vows, smiling out over the Mountains of Solace and Solitude, towards the Citadel and beyond._

_And with that, she knows that it is time to go. She kisses her fingers and presses them against the grass, a (temporary) farewell and a reassurance of her promise. "My love to you both," she whispers. With a nod of her head, she tosses herself back into the physical world._

With a shuddering gasp she sits bolt upright on her bed, blinking at the sudden darkness. A couple of the tea lights have gone out, however the pale turquoise-green colour emanating from her eyes again provides gives an eerie sort of glow to the atmosphere. Rose leans forward to check out this development in the mirror, however she misjudges the distance and quickly falls smack onto the carpet.

"Ow," she winces, rubbing at her now-sore hip. She glances at her hand on the way back up, seeing her skin highlighted by the green glow from her eyes, and realizes that no marks came out this time, unlike the last dream she had while at Lou's house.

Definitely not a dream, she assures herself. Even if she imagined all of that, there's no way she could even comprehend imitating that attitude of the TARDIS. Rose pushes herself to her feet and stares at herself in the mirror, watching as her eyes glow and a confident grin spreads over her face. Whatever had happened, she was _there_, and had managed to reach the TARDIS.

Feeling suddenly exhausted, Rose throws herself backwards on the bed, not bothering to take her jeans off as she crawls under the covers. She supposes that psychic connection over a vast expanse of miles and years would take its toll even on the most experienced of Time Lord, let alone her own human body. Still, it was an unparalleled success. It may not have had the ideal outcome of being able to reach the Doctor directly, but it was at least _something_.

Not long after that Rose slides into sleep, the soft smile never leaving her face as the green haze fades from beneath her eyelids.


	6. Chapter 5: It's A Godawful Small Affair

**Five: "It's a god awful small affair to the girl with the mousy hair…"**

**- David Bowie, _Life on Mars_**

The three girls hurtle down the long escalator at the Logan Airport station, bags and backpacks flying about them with no care for the disgruntled crowd around them. The train station in question is a modern and sleek structure, designed to welcome all to the airport with a quiet dignity that is currently being shattered by this discombobulated party.

"Which bus is it?" Rose calls out as they stumble off the escalator and onto the floor.

"Eighty…something," Priya hollers back, attempting to get both wheels of her suitcase back on the ground again as she struggles to keep her pocketbook from falling off.

"They're all eighty-something," she grunts, grabbing Gemma by the strap of her oversized rucksack and pointing her in the direction of the doors leading to the buses.

"Actually, the screen there says that it's thirty-three," Gemma points out, making the two women pause and stare at the monitors.

"Right, let's catch that bus and get moving," Rose nods. Luckily the bus is waiting outside, and within seconds of them getting on it's off and moving for the main airport terminal.

Priya slouches back against the window, bags propped on her lap, and she releases a happy sigh. "Finally free. Two glorious weeks of vacation ahead of me and I don't even have to think about that bloody hospital once."

Rose smiles at her and takes the seat next to her. "It is a lovely feeling, isn't it?"

She nods. "God yes. Something we don't get enough of these days, that's for sure." She looks over at Rose, who still has that soft sort of smile on her face. "What about you? I know you said that your job is stingy with vacation days."

The grin wavers just slightly. "Well…" she hesitates for a moment, saved by Priya's groan of exasperation.

"You got fired again, didn't you?" she says.

"No," Rose insists with an upraised finger. "I quit. Can you honestly see me serving out coffee at five in the morning anyway?"

"No, but that's not the point." Priya leans in close so that she can barely be heard over the loud engine. "How the hell are you paying for this trip? I know we don't have to pay for lodgings but those plane tickets weren't cheap."

"I sold some of my mum's good jewellery," Rose whispers back. "She never wore the stuff, and I know that my mum would rather us be using the things to be happy instead of collecting dust in a box somewhere." It was true that Jackie never wore the gaudy but expensive jewels that the alternate Jackie favoured, so Rose didn't feel at all bad pawning it off in order to fund their travels. The important things, her and Pete's wedding rings, held the place of honor around Rose's neck right next to her TARDIS key tucked away safely under her shirt, and those things she was never going to let go of.

"Yeah, but you can't live off of jewellery forever," Priya insists. "Why not just find another job at a shop or a restaurant and work there until you find something a little better paying?"

Rose glances over at Gemma, who's busy playing with the portable video game setup brought along for entertainment purposes. "I'll tell you on the plane," she whispers, not taking her eyes off of her sister.

It's not until the red-eye flight is well under way and Gemma is absorbed in whatever family friendly movie the airline has decided to show them that Rose unbuckles her seatbelt and moves across to the middle aisle. She slides into an empty seat next to Priya, who puts down her book and looks at her expectantly. "So?" she asks, although not unkindly. "What's the story?"

Rose sighs and curls up, tucking her legs under her. "How much did I tell you about what was going on before we ended up in Boston? I don't quite remember."

"I don't remember much either, and probably for the same reason," Priya says, smirking slightly and remembering the long nights spent around bottles of wine talking almost until the sun came up. "I do know you said you had been travelling for a while though."

"Yeah, since I was nineteen," Rose nods, chewing idly on a thumbnail. "Before Gemma was born, actually."

"So how old are you really then? You never gave us a number and we thought it was a big joke because why does someone who looks like she's twenty have to hide her age?"

Rose winces just a bit and shoots her a sideways glance. "Would it be really bad if I told you I kind of forgot exactly how old I am? That's not the point though. The point is, I worked in a shop ages ago, and I used to think it was all I was ever going to do, that, go home, eat chips, watch telly, marry my steady boyfriend, and go to sleep.

"But then I started travelling and saw just what was out there waiting for me." Her eyes grow wistful and distant, staring off into the gloom of the plane. "Met the love of my life, went travelling with him."

"I think you mentioned something about that once before that as well," Priya nods, clutching convulsively at her armrest as the plane hits an air pocket. "As an explanation as to why the date with that lovely intern from the hospital I set you up with ended with you sneaking out the bathroom window."

Rose turns to Priya, giving her a look that seems to penetrate all the way through. "Even if I live for another three thousand years I'll always love him. He wasn't perfect, not by far, but I loved him so much that no man I meet now will ever measure up to him. I still love him, really, and I feel…lucky, and honored, I guess, that I had that love in my life at least once. If I don't find it again and I end up dying alone three thousand years from now, I'll remember that, and him, and be content." She shakes her head, pulling loose from memories of the Doctor once more and back to the present, focusing on the feel of the air pressure of the plane, the movement through the sky, and the whir of the engines. "But that's not the point. What is the point is that he showed me the wide world that's out there for us to explore.

"Even when we ended up…going our separate ways-" she can't bear to tell her friend the truth about their separation. Yes, it's been years hence and though she's managed to survive and have a relatively fantastic life thus far, she feels the tenuous string that her emotions are being held in by. Remembering that scene on the beach and knowing that ten years later she's still searching for a way back to him might just break her irreparably right now, and she can't afford that. She has to stay focused… "I got a job that took me all over as well. I was defending the Earth, something that he taught me, keeping the planet safe."

"So he was an environmentalist?" Priya asks, pulling the cheap and rough airplane blanket up around her shoulders.

"Sort of like that," Rose says, not willing to get into all of the complexities that made up the Doctor right then and there. She'd need a lot more than a cross-Atlantic flight to London to have enough time to explain him. "And then…then my parents died, and it was up to me to take care of Gemma." It was a simplified version of the story; as much as she loves her friend, how could she possibly understand the whole parallel universe bit? Although maybe she shouldn't doubt her, this was the girl who had ended up on the moon once. "So I went from travelling and defending the earth to a mummy substitute, and as I'm sure you've figured out I'm not exactly a candidate for parent of the year. Tried to take Gemma travelling, use our inheritance to show her all of the wonders, but I pushed her too hard. I realize that now, but I didn't at the time. Ended up in Boston, tried to get a normal job, met you guys, and the rest is history."

She smiles, looking over at her friend again. "I don't regret it, not any of it. But to go through all of that and then land back working in a shop yet again…no, it's not going to happen. I'll hold out for something better, but don't expect me to go out and get the first thing that comes my way just for money." A vague and fuzzy thought passes through her head, that ages ago the Doctor had mentioned U.N.I.T and how they were alien experts. Maybe she should check to see if they were hiring…

Instead of coming out with the expected platitudes for the supposed hardships of her life, Priya surprises her pleasantly, knowing just what her friend needs more. "You're too smart to work in a store for the rest of your life anyway, and you know it," she says, leaning over to wrap an arm around her friend's shoulders and giving her a quick squeeze.

"Yeah, but I can't exactly put my varied and random skills on a CV, can I?" Rose grins, leaning her head against Priya's arm.

"Maybe when we get back I can take a look at what MGH has posted for employment opportunities," Priya offers. "It won't be the most exciting of places to work, but it'll be better than Starbucks."

"Can't hurt," Rose agrees. "However, I don't want to think about it right now. I'll deal with it when our lovely Venetian vacation is done with."

"Sounds like a fantastic plan. Now, how about seeing if we can't purchase some crap overpriced wine from this flying tin can? I need something to anesthetize me if I'm going to make it through this flight without tearing all of my hair or the stuffing out of this seat back here," Priya grumbles as Rose grins wider and hits the call for service button.

* * *

They've been in London for a couple of days now, and not for the first time in that short period does Rose feel like an alien in the place she used to call home. With the exception of one brief trip a year and a half ago, it's been over a decade since she's visited this London. As soon as she steps out of Priya's small and bustling family home she feels like something's just slightly off in the air. It doesn't take long to figure out yet again that London hasn't changed, but she has.

She stares up and down the street from her perch on the brick wall outside Priya's house and bites her lip in thought. Priya had taken Gemma shopping to find a pair of wings – she'd found a dress in a dance shop back in Boston and had deemed it nearly perfect. All it needed to complete the look was a set of fairy wings, and Priya claimed to know the perfect place to get them. Right next to Henrik's department store, she said, not noticing the sudden widening of Gemma's eyes. The little girl wasn't at all surprised when Rose begged off shopping due to a sudden migraine.

Now her brain is whirring though, and her feet are itching to move. Not far, just enough to satisfy the curiosity. Rose pushes herself off the wall and jogs over to the bus stop.

A short ride and a few route changes later she hops off the bus right at the stop for the Powell Estate. It's a typical early March day, all blustery wind and chilled air, and for a second she feels as if she's back in school, huddling at the stop with her mates for warmth as they wait for the bus to cart them away to yet another day at school. She smiles to herself and wanders further into the maze of buildings.

There's no purpose to this trip down memory lane, but it's interesting to see where she came from through these new eyes. The estate still looks the same as it ever did, brick and concrete buildings looking a bit dour, with the people inside them providing all the life needed and more. Rose shoves her hands in her coat pockets and looks over at Bucknall House. Yes, there are fond memories of this place. Who'd have ever thought that little Rose Tyler would manage to escape this place and make a totally different life for herself? Her neighbours sure didn't. Hell, neither did she back at the beginning.

She spins around and looks down the gap between two buildings. Her feet soon follow, and she finds herself looking at a place where the TARDIS once stood. She had landed right on this spot when they got back from her first trip, a year after he'd meant to bring her back. Talk about 'oops'. No regrets though, Rose thinks with a smile as she scuffs her feet around a square area where she imagines she can see the outline of the TARDIS. Eventually, she leans back against the brick wall and watches the life swarming in and out of the estate.

No one recognizes her – the sunglasses and brunette dye job help with that – but she knows them. She sees someone who worked in a nearby market, a young woman who looks like someone she went to school with, and her mother's friend Bev, rushing up a flight of stairs to God only knows where. Life has moved on here, and no one seems to miss the Tylers at all. It's a bit weird, realizing that a place that had been home to her for nineteen years doesn't even seem to bear the slightest trace of her anymore. The other universe hadn't been home at all, and now this one had seemed to abandon her in its trek into the future. Bit disheartening, really.

Her next stop is the concrete court on the outskirt of the estate, where she had seen the words 'Bad Wolf' scrawled in chalk on the pavement. She pauses as she mulls over those words. They wouldn't be as much of a puzzle to her if that had been the last time she'd seen them, because that would mean her job would have been done. Her job was done – she'd opened up the heart of the TARDIS, got back to the Doctor, and he was safe from the Daleks. But that wasn't the last. Even years later they keep popping up, still managing to haunt her a bit, making wonder just what's going on. Rose runs her knuckles over her right bicep, staring at the 'Bad Wolf' that's still on the wall surrounding the court.

There's a slight hiss off to one side of her, and she looks over to find a few young boys there, none of them more than ten years old at the most, scrawling random patterns on another wall with a can of spray paint. The sight of it gives her an idea. It's all about the writing, isn't it, she thinks as she smirks to herself.

"Oi, can I borrow that for two seconds?" she asks the boys as she trots over to them.

The boy in possession of the spray can hides it behind his back. "Borrow what?"

"Oh, come on," Rose whinges. "Don't worry, I'm not gonna call the police on you, and you'll get the paint back in a minute."

"All right." The boy reluctantly hands it over and Rose smiles as she feels the cool cylinder in her hand. She tosses it up and down a few times, then turns tail and runs to the other side of the court, shaking the paint as she does so. It's nearly an established fact in her mind that the Doctor doesn't look back or revisit the past deliberately. On the off chance though that he wanders back into the life of the Powell Estate one day, she wants to leave him a message.

Her Gallifreyan handwriting is nowhere near as smooth or as sleek as the Doctor's is, but it's all her own. Soon, scrawled on the wall untidily next to the old words of 'Bad Wolf' is a quick and concise message in Gallifreyan: 'Rose Was Here'. A bit immature, but as she backs away from it she smiles widely, thinking that it's just perfect.

"Cheers, mate!" she calls, tossing the cylinder back to the boy as she leaves the court and makes her way back to the bus stop. That was enough of a visit into the past for today, now it was time for the future.

When she arrives back at Priya's home she is met by an armful of giggling Gemma. Her sister spins around and shows off the wings she's found, black nylon butterfly shaped wings dusted with a scattering of iridescent glitter. "What do you think?" she asks, backing away and twirling around and showing off right there in the hallway.

It's not the best put together look, the jeans, tattered trainers, and wings don't exactly blend, but Rose can easily see that they'll work with the dress she's picked out. "I think they're brilliant," she says, running a hand along the top edge of the wing and feeling the thin metal frame under her hands.

"I agree," Gemma says, dancing away from Rose and spinning around once more.

"Me too," Priya says, leaning over the stairway banister. "The wings are absolutely smashing, Gem."

"Thank you."

"Still doesn't answer the question though what your dear sister Mari's going to do about her costume." Priya gives Rose an arch look, at which Rose just nods and crosses her arms over her chest.

"Oh, don't worry, I've got an idea. You remember that store your Mum took us to yesterday?" she asks, and Priya nods affirmatively. "We're going to have to go back there. I spotted something perfect…"

T.B.C…


	7. Chapter 6: La Serenissima

**Six: **_**La Serenissima**_

"Well, at least it's not a train this time," Gemma sighs as they wait for Louise to get back with their tickets for the _vaporetto_ that would take them to the palazzo. "Train to the airport, train to Priya's place, train back to the airport, train from Milan to Venice…" she trails off and straddles Priya's suitcase, using it as an impromptu seat in the middle of the unbridled chaos.

Rose stares around at the mass of humanity seething and flowing all around them, standing there on the edge of the water. There are departure points for various water buses all along the edge, low boats with yellow signs denoting their routes. The view opens right out to Venice's Grand Canal, welcoming one and all to this fair city. She had previously been told that Venice in the winter was for the locals, but this is a special occasion. This is _Carnevale_, one last bash before the austerity of the Lenten season sets in, and for the next few nights all bets are off and anything can happen. She zips up her jacket and pushes her sunglasses up her nose. There's a bit of a chill in the air but the sun is high in the sky, making the day just glorious.

"Here we go," Priya says as she walks back towards them, arms filled with various bottles. "Fizzy water for you," she tosses in Rose's direction, along with one of the bottles.

"Thank you!"

"And an Orangina for the young lady."

"Ooh, I haven't had one of these in years," Gemma gushes, cracking the bottle open and taking a gulp.

"Years?" Priya jokes, twisting the cap on her own Diet Coke. "You're not even ten yet." Gemma just shrugs and keeps drinking.

"Hey, did you see Lou while you were getting the drinks?" Rose asks. "I don't think it should be taking this long to pick up a few tickets for the boat."

Priya shakes her head. "Nope. You're right, she should have been here by now."

"Wanna toss for it, see who gets to go find her?" Rose suggests.

"Nah, I'll take care of it. I'm already up and moving anyway," Priya says, waving at her as she blends back into the crowds. Rose nods to herself and sits down on the ground next to Gemma's suitcase. All the benches are full, and her oversized backpack is a bit too squashy to serve as good seating.

"This is really lovely," Gemma sighs happily as they sit and watch the tourists scramble around. "And it's right here on Earth!"

Rose nods in agreement, tilting her face back to feel the sun shine warmly on her face. "It's amazing; some of the most brilliant things out there are the ones that are right in front of you that you never notice." She snorts to herself, marvelling at how much she's changed. The Rose Tyler of ten years ago would have never thought like that, preferring all of the mysteries that were out there in the stars. Now there's a new appreciation – because while Earth is far from perfect, it's hers. And it is beautiful.

"Although…" Gemma trails off with a slight catch in her voice, making Rose look up at her.

"What?"

Gemma glances down at Rose, the wind blowing her curls all about her face. "If – if you wanted to go travelling, wanted us to go travelling on Earth again, I really wouldn't mind that."

"What's brought this on?" asks Rose, puzzled. This is a far cry from the little girl who had begged for them to stop a year and a half ago.

She shrugs, mouth working as she tries to come up with a good answer. "I dunno. Are you really happy being stuck in one place all the time?"

"That's not the point," Rose says, glaring at Gemma over the tops of her sunglasses. "This is about why you want to go."

Gemma shakes her head, frustrated. "Well I'm not happy. Thought I would be, but I'm not. It's boring here."

"Life is boring sometimes, Gem," Rose sighs herself. "Most times, really. We were lucky enough to have adventures for a little while, but it isn't always like that." Yet more knowledge gained the painful way. Those glorious periods of travel and adventure don't always last. She wishes it would have, had promised him forever, but things just get in the way sometimes. She wrinkles her nose, wondering just why she's so melancholy lately. It doesn't make sense for her to be so maudlin, because life isn't that bad at all. It may not be a great adventure, but it's pretty damn good. And there's a strange sort of progress in getting closer to finding the Doctor as well. So there's no reason for her to be all shades of gloom and doom.

"But don't you miss being out there too?" Gemma pushes. "I mean, if this was when we were travelling, we could be heading off to, I dunno, Croatia or something like that next and see whatever beaches or crumbling old castles are there. Instead we've got to get back on the train, back on the plane, and then back to school," she grimaces, the distaste clear on her face.

"So it's about not wanting to go to school," she nods, not questioning this time.

"It's not about not going to school," Gemma insists. "I just…learn better when we can see things up close."

"Most people do," Rose agrees. "I was a disaster at school and ended up leaving when I was sixteen."

"Yeah, but you were nearly a grownup then, it's different." Gemma winces again, scratching her palms over the surface of her jeans. "My progress report isn't going to be too good this time, you know," she says, not meeting Rose's gaze. "The teacher doesn't like it when I contradict her. She doesn't know anything about history though, so she's asking for it. D'you know she thought the Gettysburg Address was signed on September 19th?"

"Gettysburg Address?" The name sounds familiar to her, but she can't quite place it. Until she'd met the Doctor she wasn't exactly a history fan, and even after that she still wasn't as familiar with some of the things that had happened on Earth as compared with the history of the Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire.

"Big important speech from the Civil War, American Civil War – they taught us about it last year in class. Happened on November 19th, everyone knows this, but she really believed that it happened in September." Gemma grimaces and shifts on the suitcase, grabbing onto one of the loose straps hanging off of it. "So now I've got a problem listening in class and talking out of turn. She said she was going to call you to have a meeting the day before we left for England."

Rose rubs her temples with one hand, squeezing her eyes shut behind her sunglasses. "Well I haven't heard anything from her, if that's any relief."

"Not really. She's still going to get me in trouble."

"You won't be in trouble for telling the truth, I can promise you that," Rose reassures her. "You are going to have to face it though; we're not going to Croatia just so you can run away from your teacher." Gemma's grimace grows even deeper, making Rose throw her head back with laughter. It really does remind her far too much of her own school days. "Oh, here comes trouble," she says, reining in the giggles as Louise and Priya come hustling back in their direction. "Shift up, Gem, I think we're going to have to get moving."

The two girls get to their feet and collect their various bags and backpacks. "All right, ladies, this way," Louise says, rushing past them with barely a glance and heading towards the docks.

"She better not be like this all week," Priya grumbles, grabbing the handle of her suitcase and rolling it along. "Otherwise I'm going to stick her in the arse with a syringe full of sedative."

"I'll hold her down," Rose agrees.

The _vaporetto_ is packed with people so the girls end up standing by the entrance of the ship, the only thing holding them back from the splashing water a few well-placed chains. It just adds to the excitement though, so Priya, Gemma, and Rose end up leaning out over the chains, watching as the city of Venice approaches them.

"Gorgeous, totally gorgeous," Priya mutters, making Gemma nod in agreement.

Suddenly, without any sort of forewarning at all, a feeling skates down Rose's back, as if someone has decided to glide two fingertips down her spine. She gasps shallowly, hands tightening on the chains. The sea spray splashes against her, and she turns her face up to the deep blue sky. She hasn't felt this feeling in years upon years, but her body hasn't forgotten it. It's that small shiver over her skin, as if a solitary spark is running in patterns over her skin and leaving tiny trails of electricity in its wake. It's the feeling of the currents of time, moving back and forth like the water below her in waves and tides, and of the Earth spinning thousands of miles an hour beneath their feet. There's only one thing in the universe, in any universe, that could make her feel like this. And he's got to be close. She smiles into the wind.

"What are you grinning like a loon about?" Priya asks her, and the puzzlement is clear on her face.

"Can't you feel it?" Rose says, still smiling. "There's a storm coming."

Priya rolls her eyes, taking in the clear blue sky and the lines of the Grand Canal fast approaching. "I've already got one insane friend to deal with," she says, waving a hand in Louise's direction.

"Hey!" an indignant voice shouts back.

"I don't want to have to section the both of you," Priya continues, ignoring the disgruntled muttering from the other side of her.

"I'm fine, really," Rose insists, still smiling. "We both are. Lou's just…stressed."

"I've been stuck with my parents, my siblings, and a large amount of extended family for a week, how do you expect me to act?" Louise grouses, leaning against a support post.

"I think you should appreciate them while you've got them," Rose says, shooting her a significant look.

"Oh, I do," she says. "I don't doubt that. But isn't it the ones that you love who drive you the craziest?"

"Fair point."

"Anyway," Louise says, straightening up and waving a hand at the grand homes that they are floating past, painted in every sort of shade possible on Earth and enhanced with marble and gilding and wood. "Welcome to Venice," she says. "Or, in the local tongue, _benvenuto a la __Serenissima Repubblica di Venezia._"

"_Serenissima?"_ Rose asks, the word sending a sharp flare of recognition off at the back of her neck. She rubs the back of her left hand against the chain beneath it, imagining that it's echoing the word that's scrawled there. "What's that mean?"

"It's part of the old name for the Republic of Venice, back from when Italy was a bunch of city-states rather than one country," Louise says, staring out over the city with a fond grin on her face. "The Most Serene Republic of Venice. Don't quite remember how it started but I know they used to call the _Doges_, the Dukes, by that title as well."

"The serene Rose," she murmurs, practically to herself, staring out at a bridge down another canal that branches off the larger one.

"Never heard it called that before," Louise shrugs, and Rose shakes her head.

"No, it was just...something I heard once."

* * *

Instead of using the formal water entrance to the palazzo, Louise makes them leave the boat at the Rialto stop, and then leads them through a few twisty and turny pathways to get to the back entrance of the palace. The back entrance butts up against a piazza with a few shops and a wine bar inside it. The remnants of the old marketplace are also evident in the large wooden doors that are in front of them, appropriate as an entrance way to an old castle that contained goods from all around the known world at one point in time. Louise grabs a key from her pocket and unlocks a smaller door set within one of the larger one and holds it open for them, ushering them inside.

"Whoa," Gemma breathes, stopping barely a few feet inside.

"I know," Louise grins at her. "Impressive, huh?"

Rose just nods in agreement. She's been to many an amazing place in all of her years travelling, and this easily counts as one of the more beautiful ones. She lets her eyes wander around, looking past the pillars going from floor to ceiling, taking in the spread before her. The dark, covered walkway that they're currently standing under borders three sides of an expansive courtyard. She walks a few meters forward, going from the gloom of the walkway into the golden light of the courtyard.

The courtyard is open to the air, and she can see clear blue sky stretching up beyond the second floor. The first floor has a balcony on the same three sides that overlooks the courtyard, with ornate gothic arches providing the support. To the left of her is a massive, swooping staircase that curves between the ground and the first floor, connecting the two with a large sweep of golden coloured marble.

The golden colour is prevalent throughout the courtyard, with the stones beneath her feet looking like crystallized sand. The gothic arches lining the two floors are of a paler cream marble, shot through with gold and brown streaks that accent the stone walls. A quick glance to the right shows a solid wall going up all three floors, but there are more pointed arches cut out of the stone rising diagonally.

"The smaller arches there hide a utility stairway," Louise says, coming up behind her and pointing at the diagonal line of arches. "Come the night of the party the decorators are going to put some funky coloured gauze over there to block out the sight of everyone working going from floor to floor."

The words make Rose take a closer look, and she sees the buzzing activity going on in the courtyard. Tables are set up and scattered around, with half of them covered in tablecloths of various shades. At the foot of the large staircase a platform is being set up in preparation for live music, and everywhere she looks she can see live plants being hauled in. "This is going to be fantastic," she mutters, seeing the grin spread across Louise's face at that.

"Oh yes. They're really outdoing themselves this year. Wait 'til you see it on the night of the party, it's going to be totally amazing," Louise smiles. "What do you think, Gemma?"

"Very cool," she says, staring wide-eyed at the scene before her.

"I think that's all you're going to get out of her right now," Priya smirks, coming up besides the rest of them.

"Yeah, she's right about that. S'not often I see her lost for words," Rose notes, giving Gemma a gentle, teasing nudge in the shoulder.

"Louisa, is that you?" an accented voice calls out from across the courtyard, making Louise start guiltily.

"Shit, that's my aunt," she mutters. "Go, that way, now," she says, pushing Rose and Gemma toward a small door set in the wall, the way to access the utility stairs. "Just showing the guests to their rooms, Zia," she calls back, hustling the three girls through the door into the stairwell.

* * *

Sunday and Monday pass by rapidly, full of loud music, lots of rich wine, and tours around San Marco, the Doge's Palace, the Lido, Murano, the Accademia, and every other thing that Louise's well meaning grandparents feel that the newcomers to their fair city should see. It was a mostly good time, aside from the incident where Gemma nearly ended up in a canal – she had slid down some steps leading to the water and ended up soaked from the waist down. It had appeared that one of Lou's many cousins had pushed her in, but since the brat in question's parents denied all, the culprit wasn't punished. Gemma was, to put it mildly, not amused.

It isn't until Tuesday morning while at breakfast, the day of the Carnevale Ball itself, that Louise finally remembers that a Carnevale Ball requires masks fit for a queen to go with the fancy dress. So Rose and Priya are unceremoniously hustled by a very frazzled Louise to one of the _mascherari_ – mask makers – in town. The shop is bustling, full of people attempting to get the final touch for their costume in at the very last minute.

"What do you think?" Rose asks impishly, poking her head around the corner of a shelf.

Priya looks over at her, taking in the papier-mâché mask with its massive nose like a toucan's beak and painted on round glasses donning Rose's face. "Suits you, but I don't think it's going to go with your outfit."

Rose shrugs and pulls off the mask, placing it on a ledge somewhere behind her.

"What is your costume anyway?" Louise butts in as she pulls a mask in the shape of a crescent moon down from a hook on the wall.

"It's a surprise," Rose says, bending over to find what she thinks is the perfect mask lurking inside a cabinet. It's gold and bronze, and painted with lighter, glittery gold swirls. It goes across the eyes only, with one side swooping upwards like a stray flame over her head and mingling with the spray of feathers coming from one side of it.

"It's a sari," Priya fires back, looking for something pink and lacy to go with her costume. "That's the only sort of fancy clothing that shop we went to has."

"But it's all in the details," Rose insists, a grin spreading across her face as she weaves through the crowd to the register to pay for this most perfect mask.

"Okay, stop with the enigmatic crap!" Louise calls after her. "We're never going to be able to stop her, are we?"

"Nope, I think we're just going to have to go along with it and deal," Priya shrugs, picking up yet another mask and holding it up to her face. "There's always one odd one in the group anyway, isn't there?"

Eventually Priya found something that she felt would match her costume nicely, and so one inquiry later about a few spare masks Lou's family had ordered("They're not ready just yet, signorina, as you can see it's rather busy right now. Come back in one hour though, we should have them by then.") they leave the boutique for greener pastures…or at least a greener pasture that serves wine.

They end up at a little outdoor café in an out of the way piazza bordered by a brick chapel on one side and a slow-moving canal on the other – the past few days have continued to be absolutely brilliant weather-wise, and they can comfortably sit outside in the sunshine with just their jumpers on. "So the spares will be done in an hour…what should we do until then?" Louise asks.

"Who says we have to do anything?" Rose sighs, looking dreamily out at the sluggish canal. "I like relaxing. Relaxing is good."

"It is a nice little escape from real life, isn't it?" Louise agrees, smiling as she sips at her glass of Chianti. "Don't have to think about jobs, or worrying about the rent, or relatives nagging you about why you're still single."

Rose glances back at her. "You mean you didn't tell them about – "

"Let's not go there," Louise cuts her off with a grimace. Rose gracefully backs off, having heard the rant on this subject many a time. "Until the boy proves himself, I'm not saying a damn word," she continues.

Time passes by with more idle chatter and wine, until the peaceful afternoon is shattered by the ringing of Louise's cell phone. "Hello?" Three seconds later she hands the phone to Rose. "It's for you."

'Who is it?' Rose mouths as she takes the phone.

'Family,' Louise mouths back. Rose listens for a few minutes then lets out an audible groan. "I'll be right there. Yeah, thanks."

"What's up?" Priya asks when she's done.

Rose sighs again, this time more frustrated than before. "Apparently Gemma tried to get her own back at one of your cousins for the incident on the steps yesterday. So now I'm being summoned to explain the actions of my little sister even though it's your cousin…"

"Yeah. I'm sorry," Louise says. "The little ones are exactly the same as their parents, unfortunately. Can't tell you how many times they tortured me as a kid. If Gemma wants, there's a balcony on the second floor – go into the storage closet at the top of the utility stairwell. There's a door at the back of the closet that leads out to a pretty secluded balcony – the view's not the greatest but it's private and there's a comfy lounge to sit on. Used to hide out there all the time with a book and a bag of M&Ms as a kid."

"I'll let her know," Rose says with a small smile, standing up and grabbing the box that contains her mask. "See you back at the house." She waves good-bye and heads off, darting down a side alleyway.

"You see what I said about my family?" Louise says with a pointed look in Priya's direction.

"I'm not even going there," she says, shaking her head.

"Don't blame you for that." With a glance at her phone she shrugs and stands up herself. "Might as well go pick up the masks now. Shouldn't be more than ten minutes."

"All right," Priya agrees, "got more than enough things to entertain myself here."

"See you in a bit then." She takes off down another alley, leaving Priya to her own thoughts. And the peace and quiet is a nice sensation.

The peace and quiet is shattered not three minutes later by a loud voice, making Priya look up in surprise.

"Oh my God!"


	8. Chapter 7: Funny It's Just Like a Scene

**Seven: 'Funny it's just like a scene out of Voltaire…'**

'Funny it's just like a scene out of Voltaire, twisting out of sight

`Cause when all the curtains are pulled back we'll turn and see the circles we've traced…'

Duran Duran, _Last Chance on the Stairway_

'_Once upon a time, because that's how all good stories start, isn't it? You don't know when this story took place, could be before time, after time, outside of time…but does it really matter? Do you really need to know when it happened? Because maybe the when isn't important, but just that fact that it took place is what really matters…'_

The Doctor purses his lips and glares at the small volume he holds in his hands. Yes, all right, Alexandria Library is so concerned about this little book that they sent Edgar of all people out to retrieve it; however, he doesn't feel too bad about nicking it during their visit two weeks back due to the fact that he's mentioned in there. Gives him an honest claim to it, really. He flips through the pages of the story, looking for the few things that caught his eye earlier.

He hadn't had much time to think about it, as the rest of his visit was primarily focused on making sure the Library didn't crumble to the ground, but there were a few…odd lines in there that gave him pause. Things that no one but him should have known, but somehow ended up in this little book so far out of its time. Ah, there it is.

'…_carries the words of a lost civilisation within her skin…'_

How can the writer of this story have known that? The words were their secret; they'd never told anyone. Everyone out there would have probably looked upon them as odd or strange (well, even stranger than he was usually considered), but it was a way to keep memories alive and it was a way to bring them together, and how was that a bad thing? But it was a secret. The Doctor's got no desire to share it with anyone else now that Rose is gone; this is something that is theirs and theirs alone, something that will always draw them together, no matter how far apart they are.

But there is something else, something lurking in those pages that sent up a mauve flag in his subconscious. He props his feet up on the console as his eyes quickly scan the remaining pages, taking in all of the details of this very familiar story. Maybe it's because this story is so familiar and close to him that he missed it the first time around, because when you know exactly what's coming you can sometimes miss those tiny but important bits.

'_Tragically, or possibly tragically, the Valiant Child is soon lost to a world across the void…but how lost is lost? Maybe we writers of this tale have underestimated this Child, because she's had the time to grow up into a Valiant Woman. And maybe this Woman has the time to piece the puzzle together, to find that missing key inside of her to unlock the void, to follow the Storm and to find her way home."_

Okay, so what the hell does _that_ mean? There's got to be some esoteric and layered meaning there, something hidden beneath the words that will show what it really means. Because the obvious meaning is saying…well that's just impossible. Isn't it? It should be.

But what if it's not?

The Doctor's the first person to say how much he likes hope, but he also knows full well just how dangerous that emotion can be. However, just for that one brief moment, he can entertain the idea that she's going to come back….

A throat clears somewhere, and he looks up to see Donna and Martha standing there with identical disgruntled expressions on their faces and their arms crossed over their chests. He suspects he knows what the look is about, however it is most definitely _not his fault_ that the planet they have just run unceremoniously from has such a viewpoint on humanoid figures. He carefully shuts the book and puts it on the seat next to him.

"Donna's come up with an idea of where we should go next," Martha says, waving a hand at her compatriot. The Doctor resists the urge to gulp nervously, visions of three day long shopping benders with him as unwilling bag-boy flashing before his eyes. He did promise them though that they could decide their next location after the last so-called disaster. Still, his respiratory bypass nearly kicks in before Donna gives her answer.

"I wanna go to Venice," she says decisively, and the Doctor exhales a bit with relief. "I always wanted to ride on a gondola," she concludes.

He swings his legs off the console and grins at the two women. "Oh, Venice is so much more than just a ride on floating pile of matchsticks. _Settecento_ Venice, the place to see and be seen by anyone who's anyone in Europe at that time, how does that sound?"

"_Settecento_?" Donna repeats, following him as he bounds around to jab at a few random buttons and levers on the console.

"Eighteenth century," the Doctor confirms. "Ooh, hold on."

The TARDIS rocks and wobbles a bit, making the crowd inside grab hold of whatever's available to stay upright.

"Hey, what's this?" Martha says, making the Doctor turn to check out just what she's inquiring about. This time he does gulp nervously as he sees her holding up the little book of legends.

"Sudoku," he says, reaching over with one long arm and deftly pulling it from her grip as the other hand focuses on flying the TARDIS. "Good for giving the brain a workout." The Doctor slides the book into a little hidey hole somewhere by his knee and slams the door to it shut. As he does this he misses the extremely doubtful look that Donna and Martha share in the meantime.

* * *

It's times like this that the TARDIS marvels at just how lucky and brilliant humans are. All she has to do is tweak the year of landing a bit, not an unusual occurrence at all, even though it's never _her_ fault they have a tendency to end up in the wrong time or place more often than not (or so she tells herself). After that, the Time Lord's on his own. He really had better not screw this opportunity up…

* * *

With a reassuring thump the TARDIS lands and the two women head straight for the door. The Doctor wavers a bit – he's very tempted to set Martha and Donna loose on Venice on their own while he tosses himself back into the puzzle that book holds. But there's another, far larger part of him that would feel horrible if something happened to them out there and he wasn't around to help them out of it. With a twist of his lips he glances down at where the book is stashed, then dashes after the girls, grabbing his coat on the way.

He bumps into Donna right outside the door. For some reason they've stopped right outside the TARDIS. "You said eighteenth century, right Doctor?" Donna asks him, a very suspicious tone in her voice.

"Yeeees?"

She points down the small street they're on – wherever they are it's obviously European in nature, and the Doctor suspects that they _are_ actually in Venice. There's just something about the look of the place that's so hard to duplicate, lots of stone and brick walls rising high into the sky right above them, and if he looks the other way down the street he can just make out a footbridge running over a canal – "Then why's there a clown riding a Segway on the road?"

He looks the other way to find that Donna is indeed telling the truth, that there is a Pierrot, all sequins and lace and stockings, riding away from them on a Segway. He watches until the clown turns a corner and frowns to himself. "Maybe a little bit off," he muses.

"Just a bit," Donna whispers in agreement.

The Doctor pushes ahead of the two women and looks around the small alleyway. "Still, we are most certainly in Venice. Smell that sea air! And," he begins to walk, beckoning Martha and Donna come with him, "if the presence of that clown is anything to go by, we've come just in time for Carnival."

"What, like the Notting Hill Carnival?" Martha asks, eyes scanning the ground for some sort of stray newspaper or leaflet, anything that could give her a good idea of what the date is.

A slight grimace crosses the Doctor's face. "Nah, more like Mardi Gras rather than Notting Hill," he continues, sidestepping a group of people carrying large garment bags. "_Carnevale_, Mardi Gras, Shrove Tuesday, Fat Tuesday, all of them came out of the Christian tradition of Lent, well, the idea of a carnival is even older than Christianity, but that's beside the point. Lent's a season full of fasting and praying, going off various foods and whatnot. Basically a very austere time of year." This time they maneuver around a couple of stately ladies (who just may possibly be men under the masks – the chest hair is a bit of a giveaway). "However, as is the nature of people since they've got to get rid of all that good stuff from their lives for the next forty days, they go a bit wild before hand, hence the idea of a carnival."

"Sounds a bit familiar," Donna nods as they turn the corner, with a small piazza not that far ahead of them. "I've known many a pub back home to do a Mardi Gras night. 'Course, it's not for the same dignified purpose, I'll admit. Most of them are just an excuse to drink until you're certain to spend the next morning with your head bent over the loo."

"That actually sounds rather historically accurate," the Doctor says, looking at the buildings around him with a puzzled look on his face. "What's interesting though is that Venice only started up its modern carnival celebrations in 1979 after years of not having them for various reasons. So I'm wondering how far off in your future we really are."

"Actually, we're not in the future at all," Martha says, scooping up a newspaper from a marble bench attached to a wall. "According to this it's Tuesday, 8 March, 2011. Paper's too clean to have been outside for more than a couple of days." She looks up at him with an arched eyebrow. "You picked me up barely a week ago from this date, right after Tom went back to Africa for three months, remember?"

Donna nods in agreement, going over to look at the paper. "Huh. She's right, the last time I went round to see Mum was at the beginning of February of this year. Blimey, two years travelling with you moves fast, don't it?"

"That's time for you," the Doctor says, pulling the paper his way. "Given the presence of wayward clowns, I suspect that today is in fact Tuesday, which makes it the day of Carnival proper."

"Which means?" Donna asks.

"Which means we picked the right time to land in Venice." Carnivals are always notorious for being chaotic, the Doctor knows, and maybe he'll find something to distract him enough to keep his brain occupied until he can get back to the TARDIS and check out that book further. "Anything could happen this time of year," he says, walking towards the _piazza_.

The _piazza_ is bordered by yet another canal. There's a couple of kids sitting with their feet dangling over the side, even though the water doesn't look really properly clean. On the other side is a small brick chapel, with its circular stained glass window the main feature of its façade. There's also a small café in the piazza as well, with some outdoor tables set under a green and white striped awning. It's as they pass this café that Martha stops dead in her tracks and nearly squeals. "Oh my God!"

The Doctor watches as Martha embraces a young woman standing by one of the tables, obviously recognizing her, and begins to back away slowly. There's the distinct sensation of _girl talk _looming on the horizon, and really that's no place for any respectable Time Lord to be. He heads back over to the chapel – maybe there'll be a long lost fresco or something of the like to discover inside.

* * *

"Martha Jones, how the hell are you?" Priya gushes as she pulls away, making Martha smile. Of all the places to see her old friend from med school, she hadn't ever expected it to be Venice in the middle of a tour around time and space.

"I'm really good, actually! How about you?" Martha replies.

"On holiday, can't get much better than that," Priya nods. "You got time for a chat, play a little catch up?"

"Yeah, absolutely." Martha pulls out a chair and bobs her head at Donna, who grabs a seat also. "Donna, this is Priya, an old friend of mine from our med school days."

"Nice to meet you," Donna smiles, sticking out a hand for her to shake.

"Likewise," Priya says, meeting the handshake.

"And Pree, this is Donna. I guess you can say we're on holiday ourselves right now." She resists the urge to snicker to herself – how exactly does one explain what they do with the Doctor on a daily basis?

"Same here. Spent a week at my parents' place, now here for a week. How's, oh what's his name…Tom! Yes, how's Tom doing?" Priya says, taking a sip of her wine and waving at the waiter to bring over a couple more glasses.

"Tom's well. He's in Africa right now, actually. You know, that Doctors Without Borders thing," Martha nods, watching as the newly arrived glasses are topped off from the bottle of red on the table. "So while he's away I decided to take a little trip myself with a few friends. Speaking of which…" she trails off, looking around for where the Doctor could have possibly disappeared to, but he's nowhere to be found. "Where'd he go?"

Donna shrugs. "Beats me. You know how he gets – attention span of a prawn."

"He who?" Priya asks, obviously curious. "Your boyfriend?" she asks in Donna's direction, making the other woman nearly snort wine out her nose.

"Yeah, right, that space oddity? No, we're really just a bunch of mates who like to travel together."

Priya nods. "And that's one of the best things in the world, that's for sure."

"Glad you agree," Donna grins, holding up her glass in salute.

Martha leans back in her chair, a bemused look on her face. "Of all the places in the world and I run into you here. We hadn't even planned on coming here, it was a bit of a spontaneous decision."

"It's nice to have that luxury," Priya sighs, brushing some straight black hair out of her eyes. "We've been planning this thing for months, not to mention scraping together the funds for it."

"Speaking of which, how's work going for you? You're at Massachusetts General now, right?"

"Work's…" her voice trails off as she grimaces and slugs back another mouthful of wine. "I'm currently assigned to night shift A&E."

"Ouch," Martha hisses, a sympathetic wince on her face.

"Yeah. Hence the need for wine," she nods, clinking her fingernails on the glass. "But I'm not thinking about it until I'm back in Boston. I've got a lovely vacation and a hell of a party to go to tonight, and I'm not going to let work thoughts get in the way of that."

"Party?" Donna asks with an arched eyebrow. Now that's an idea she can get behind.

It's obvious Priya can get behind that idea as well, as a wide grin transforms her face. "Oh yes. It's actually the whole reason for this trip – my roommate's got family in Venice, and she invited a bunch of us to come along with her. If anything it's an excuse for fancy dress and lots of good food." A sudden glint develops in her eye, and she looks around conspiratorially at the two women sitting with her. "You guys interested in coming along?"

Donna and Martha trade a look, both realizing that this idea has potential. "Sounds like fun to me," Martha says in a low voice to her. "But do you really think he's –"

Donna cuts her off with a sharp look. "_He_ still owes us after the last disaster. I think a party sounds absolutely divine." She turns to Priya. "So yes, we are definitely interested in going to a party tonight."

"Fantastic," Priya grins. She turns around ,waving the nearest waiter over. "Do you have a pen?" she asks, miming a writing motion on her palm. "Um, a _penna_?" The waiter finally nods and hands her the pen from his apron. "_Grazie," _she replies, then brings her attention back to Martha and Donna as she scribbles the necessary information on a napkin. "All right, the costume ball's at this address. Cocktails start at seven, and fancy dress is a must. Well, it says fancy, but an evening gown and a mask will do just fine." She glances up at them, biting her lip nervously. "You'll be able to find something to wear in time, right?"

"Don't worry, we've got a whole wardrobe at our hands," Donna grins. "I think we'll be more than able to find party clothes."

A familiar voice from behind them breaks in. "What's this about a party?" the Doctor asks, approaching the table. Whatever had distracted him previously apparently hadn't held his interest for all that long.

Martha leans back and smiles a winning smile up at him. "We've just been invited to a costume ball tonight. You might wanna dust off your tux." The Doctor nods slowly, but it's rather clear he's not fond of this idea to the two women. No doubt he has better, more Time Lordy things to do with his evening. They're not letting him out of this one though. An evening of attempting to act civilised will be more than enough retribution for them, and Martha and Donna share another nod.

"Is this your other friend?" Priya breaks in, shooting an appraising look the Doctor's way.

"Right, hello!" the Doctor grins at her, a welcome distraction from the insistent looks his companions are giving him. "I'm – "

This time the Doctor is cut off by the arrival of what could possibly be a five-foot-one hurricane on two feet, otherwise known as Louise. She barrels up to the table, carrying two oversized bags stuffed with paper wrapped packages. "All right Pree, we've so got to get moving now," she says, dumping the bags on the table and taking a swig directly from the nearly empty wine bottle. "My gran just called looking for these stupid masks, and from what it sounds like Gem may or may not have smacked my cousin Luca right in the face. Not that the little brat doesn't deserve it, god knows his mother takes the prize for personality of the year. However, then she says that when Luca's mom started to rant and rave, Mari nearly smacked her 'round the head, so I've got to wonder if it's something genetic in that family. Anyway, now they've apparently barricaded the door to the pantry in order to have it out, let's just hope no one's scrubbing blood off of the tiles when the dust finally - " She pauses, finally noticing the crowd around the table has grown just a bit from when she'd left. "Hello…"

"Friends of mine from med school," Priya says. "I've invited them to the ball tonight, actually, if that's all right."

"Fine by me," Louise nods, sliding her bag from her shoulder and beginning to rummage around in it. "It'll be a nice change to have some sane people there. Ah, here we are." She pulls out three envelopes and hands them to the Doctor, Martha, and Donna. "All the extra invites definitely come in handy times like this. Anyway, just present those at the door and you're in. Any problems…you know what?" She looks down at Priya.

"What?" she echoes.

She looks at Martha and Donna. "Why don't you two ladies come over a little earlier, say around five? There's going to be a whole bunch of us girls there getting all dolled up for the thing, so why don't you bring your stuff over and join in the fun? Your friend there can come over later for the actual ball, unless he wants us to paint his toenails."

"No, ta," the Doctor says absently, flipping the invite over a few times.

"No surprise there, but yeah, definitely," Martha says. "Five p.m., we'll be there."

"Awesome," Louise grins, the smile wiping away the tension in her face and making her hazel eyes crinkle just a bit at the corner. "However, we've really got to get moving," she says to Priya, digging around in her purse for a few Euros to toss on the table for the wine.

"Right," Priya says, standing up and pulling some change out of her pocket. "So we'll see you tonight then?"

"Can't wait," Martha nods, followed quickly by Donna.

"Excellent, I'll see you then and we'll catch up even more. See you soon!" The two women begin to walk away, however within two seconds Priya stops short and darts back to the table, practically dragging Louise with her. "Martha?"

"Yeah?"

"Quick question – do you remember that time in med school, when the hospital ended up on the moon?"

"Oh, not this again!" Louise explodes before anyone else has time to react, nearly hitting herself in the head with her shopping bags. "Will you drop it with this story already? It's not possible."

"You are such a sceptic," Priya fires back good naturedly.

"I'm happy that way. And until the time comes that a little green man from Reticula or some other planet lands smack in front of me and waves in my face, I will be happy thinking that aliens aren't real and you're a loony. A loveable loony, yes, but still a loony."

"Um, actually," the Doctor smirks, unable to resist the temptation to wave his hand in the air. "Ow!" he winces and glares at Donna, rubbing the place where she's just elbowed him in the stomach.

"Scare the locals later," she mutters at him.

"All right, we've really got to go now, but we'll see you at five, right?" Priya hollers out as they begin to hustle down another side alley.

"See you then!" Martha calls back, her eyes following them until they disappear around a corner.

"So I guess we've got a party to go to tonight then," the Doctor says, jamming his hands and the invite into his trouser pockets.

"Yes we do," Donna says, looking up at him. "Better get the tux out of moth balls, Reticulan."

Bugger. There go his plans for spending a quiet night at home with the book.

T.B.C….


	9. Interlude: Tell Me Something True

Summary: In chapter seven of _Mysterious Ways_ the Doctor wanders off for a little bit. What does he see in those few minutes?

As I know everyone here has seen, I'm not exactly the best at keeping this story updated on here. However, I got this absolutely, amazingly wonderful piece of feedback today asking to not take too long in updating here with the rest of the story. So, that's exactly what I'm going to try to do (as I procrastinate from doing my thesis work...*sigh*). I've got all of the parts that have been written and beta'd uploaded to my document manager, and depending on the guidelines here I should be able to get all of them updated in the next two days. These parts do contain the entire story, with the exception of the epilogue, which still isn't finished. But, the reunion is in there, so hopefully that will help. :) If I forget to update, someone please remind me!

09, you're right - it is going to take a few parts for the reunion to come about, and there's definitely going to be some missed moments in there, but look at it like a dance - spinning and spinning about until finally it all comes together. ;) And I'm interested to hear your theories about the book!

Okay, on with the show...

* * *

The chapel is mostly abandoned at this time of day. The only people there, the Doctor notes, are a couple of people cleaning the altar in preparation for the next day's ceremonies. He looks around the rest of the chapel. It's a typical setup, dark and dusty atmosphere, rows of pews lain out before him, stained glass windows with pictures of overly tortured martyrs, and the Stations of the Cross tacked to the walls in between them. No interesting frescoes, however. He's a bit disappointed in that, really. The only thing that could be remotely interesting is the pounding music bleeding in through the walls from another building nearby. And it doesn't quite sound like something the parishioners would choose to listen to.

"The priests must love hearing that in the morning," he mutters, spinning on one of his trainers and walking along the behind the pews.

His mind's not in it, though his body paces back and forth. His mind is still back on the TARDIS, trying to decipher that bloody book. There's something there, some reason that it's telling their story and adding an extra ending _that hasn't happened_, but he can't figure out why.

As he paces, the Doctor's mind whirs, flying about through centuries of history and events that haven't happened, haven't happened yet, never would happen. The physical space around him seems to solidify, and some part of his brain registers that it feels like he's walking through something gelatinous, almost like an odd sort of force field. Time is slowing down, he recognizes, and it may be because of the Time Lord himself.

What's the purpose, he thinks, as time flows slowly around him. Why are these things popping up now? Is the universe trying to exact one last revenge upon him by driving him completely round the twist?

No, that can't be it, the Doctor winces. There's something rather silly about that scenario, and nothing that's been happening lately is silly. His head tips back, the plaster and boards of the ceiling whirling before his eyes, and he feels like he's been set spinning in the vortex without a capsule. He squeezes his eyes shut. Why the hell is he being told this?

_…tell me something true…_

Round and round he goes…

"Those bloody stupid kids!" The loud voice snaps him out of his time stupor, bringing him back to reality with a clang. His head tips down and his eyes open, only to see one of the people running down a side aisle of the chapel with a plastic bucket. "Every time, right before a holy day," the woman mutters as she bustles past him, the bucket sloshing water onto his trainers.

The Doctor twists just in time to see the woman throw the bucket of water at the door of one of the confessional booths. The chalked on graffiti slides off of the wooden paneling in a wave of white, splashing on the stone floor. But in those few seconds before it was erased, the Doctor got a clear view at what words were scrawled on there.

_Bad Wolf._

Maybe it's pure coincidence, or timey-wimey stuff, or just blind, dumb, stinking luck. He's not going to stick around and question it, however. Then and there he decides that Martha and Donna can have their day in Venice, but as soon as midnight hits it's back to the TARDIS like Cinderella for them and he'll be able to finally bury himself in that book. Once and for all, he's going to decipher the damn thing.

Besides, if there's one thing that he believes in, it's her.

_Love, lift me up out of these blues  
Won't you tell me something true  
I believe in you…_

- Elevation, U2


	10. Chapter8: All the Girls are Rowing There

**Eight: All the Girls are Rowing There…**

**All the girls are rowing there**

**Gently down the stream**

**In a dream I saw you there**

**On Thimble Island.**

** - 'Thimble Island', Rasputina**

**

* * *

**

A voice follows her as she storms up the stairs, with Gemma trailing in her wake. "Mari, wait!" the voice calls out, making her draw to a stop in the upstairs hall that overlooks the courtyard. She turns around to see yet another one of Louise's cousins chasing after her, although she knows that this is one of the nice ones. Neil – Aneillo, really, but he's spent so much time in the English speaking world it's far easier to use the Anglicised version of it – comes to a halt a few feet away, panting for air.

"What's up?" Rose asks, crossing her arms over her chest.

(Gemma giggles to herself and imagines that she can see honest to goodness smoke coming out of Rose's ears. At least her face has returned to a normal colour)

He shrugs, leaning over to brace his palms on his knees as he tries to catch his breath. "Just wanted to apologize for what went on down there," he says, his English only slightly accented. "They're not normal on a good day, so I can only wonder what the hell's going on in her head right now."

Unlike the lot downstairs, Neil _is_ one of the good ones, a down to earth soul with a wicked sense of humor, and a bit of a charmer as well. Apparently he had made somewhat of a name for himself at his young age in the movie industry as a director due to a few indie flicks on the natures of love, hate, good, evil, and all of that stuff, but in this scenario he's just an good-looking bloke in his early thirties wearing jeans and a t-shirt with some retro video game on it. So of course, he's lumped in with Louise and the rest of the black sheep of the family.

"S'okay," Rose sighs. "Believe it or not, I've dealt with worse."

"I've no doubt of that," Neil agrees, straightening up and brushing his longish black hair out of his eyes. "However, Nonna sent me up here to apologize about them, and she's not a lady you want to cross."

"Well, let her know I appreciate the thought." She reaches out and grabs onto Gemma's shoulder. "However I think we two might need a little time to decompress and regain some courage before we venture downstairs tonight," she continues, resisting the urge to rub at her temples.

"Certainly." Some more angry voices filter up from the grand staircase, and this time Rose does groan. She recognizes those voices all too well. "Go on," Neil says, tilting his head. "I'll hold off the angry mob." Rose just nods back and hustles Gemma up the stairs to the next floor.

"He likes you," Gemma whispers naughtily as they climb the next staircase.

"No he doesn't," Rose grimaces, practically pushing Gemma up the steps with a hand on her back.

"Yes he does," Gemma sing-songs.

"No, seriously, he doesn't. You didn't see him at dinner the other night. He was practically glued to Priya's side. Still," Rose muses, "at least it proves that Louise has some decent relatives out there. Unlike that demon downstairs," she finishes, her face falling into a deep scowl.

"You were so gonna smack her one," Gemma finally giggles as Rose slams the door to their room shut behind them.

"Bloody cow," Rose mutters as she sits down on the bed and dashes a hand back through her hair. "How can Lou be related to that witch?"

Gemma hops onto the bed, cuddling up to Rose's side. "I think the cow married into the family."

Rose looks around the guest room they've been put in, an elegantly Spartan room with simple and classic bed coverings that fits very well in this old palace. "You'd think that people who live in a place like this would have better taste, although I suppose that's giving them too much credit." Sometimes she forgets that once upon a time she lived in a mansion as well, even if it was only for a short time in her life. It never really felt like home though, even with the presence of her mum, Gemma, and Pete.

"Thank you for sticking up for me," Gemma says, hugging Rose around the waist.

"Anytime," Rose grins down at her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and pulling her close. "It's chapter one in the big sister's manual, after all – sisters have to stick up for each other."

Gemma sighs softly, taking a few more seconds of comfort where she can get it. But then she perks up a bit, the spirit coming back to her a bit, and she slides off the bed. "So d'you think we can start getting ready for the party?" she asks, picking up her sparkly black wings and twirling them over her head a few times.

"I suppose so," Rose responds. She doesn't know just how much time was spent dealing with Louise's family – she lost track after the first twenty minutes of defending her sister, herself, and her family. She recalls seeing Louise's grandmother sneaking into the oversized pantry at one point, rolling her eyes at her progeny's actions and giving Rose sympathetic glances all the while. "Besides, that's chapter four in the manual," she says, moving over to where her garment bag is hanging from the wardrobe door.

"What is?"

"Getting ready for a big party together," Rose grins, tongue poking through her teeth as she unzips the bag, revealing her dress.

The sari isn't much a sari yet as it is a length of sheer black silk georgette fabric that crinkles against her fingertips as she strokes it. There's a small halter top and under skirt in a heavier black silk that are meant to be worn under the big swath of fabric, but they're really not the important part of the costume. She traces the embroidery on the sari, her lips twisting just slightly. There's something about the arcing silver and gold swirls and whirls that reminds her very much of the handwriting that she carries with her, and as soon as she saw it she knew that this would be the perfect thing to wear.

The fabric is so sheer that she can see her fingers through it, as if there's a veil covering her hand. She flattens her palm against it and wiggles her fingers, letting the writing on her left palm show through the veil. "Huh," she muses.

"What?" Gemma asks, stopping in her struggle to get the wings on over her hoodie.

Rose shakes her head, squinting at her palm. "Nothing really. Just thinking – out of all the writing, this is the only one I have absolutely no clue about what it says."

"Which one?"

Rose twists her palm, showing it to Gemma through the veil of the silk fabric. "The Doctor wouldn't tell me what it said, just that it was a gift and I should keep it safe." She returns her gaze to the design, chewing on her lower lip as her mind wanders just a bit. She closes her fingers around her palm, catching some of the gold and silver embroidery in the process. It's a bit rough against her fingertips, but that sheer fabric and its decorations really highlight the writing scrawled across the front and back of her hand.

"Uh oh," Gemma sighs. "I know that look. You always get it when you get an idea that may or may not be a good one."

"Well it's nothing bad," Rose muses, tapping her finger against the slight smirk on her lips. "Just…declaring my allegiances, so to speak." She pulls her necklace over her head, leaving the chain with the TARDIS key and her parents' wedding rings on the dresser. Quick as anything she changes into the black halter top. The simple design leaves most of her back bare save for a few strips to tie things into place. She then rummages around in one of their suitcases, eventually finding a makeup bag filled with various substances to decorate the body. Eventually she comes up with a squeeze bottle filled with sparkly gold glitter gel, and hands it to Gemma.

"There," she says, spinning on the spot and pointing to the design that is spiraling upward from the small of her back, the only one visible back there at the moment. "Trace that one out with the glitter."

Gemma, being used to her sister's odd quirks by now, just shrugs and sits on the bed, pulling Rose over by the belt loops on her jeans. "So what's this one say?" she asks as she carefully begins to trace over the intricate and complicated Gallifreyan words.

"It's Shakespeare," Rose says, trying not to squirm as the clammy gel glides over her skin. "One of the poems." Gemma makes a noise behind her, obviously expressing her total dislike of the concept of poetry and making Rose laugh. "It's not bad, I promise. The Doctor's the true fan though." She closes her eyes and exhales, remembering and reciting a fragment of the sonnet. _"It is an ever-fixéd mark/that looks on tempests and is never shaken/It is the star to every wand'ring bark/Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken."_

"I don't get it," Gemma says bluntly, placing a palm on Rose's waist to keep steady.

"Well, that's not the whole thing. Let's just say this, Shakespeare knew an awful lot about what goes on in peoples' hearts."

"Oh, great," Gemma mutters. "Are you going to spend the whole night as a mopey, lovesick idiot again? I hate it when you get like that."

Rose laughs again, making Gemma pinch her on the side to keep her still. "Not hardly. I'm in a good mood today, despite what happened downstairs. Besides," she gazes out the window, seeing the sunlight filter in through pale curtains, "I've had the strange feeling all of a sudden that we're getting rather close."

"Close to what?"

"Something." She doesn't want to elaborate, doesn't want to get her hopes up. But right now there's a constant part of her that is staring up at the stars and can sense the storm approaching from the distance. There's that tiny little hope brewing deep inside her heart that maybe, just maybe, the long years of searching will soon be over.

Rose's mobile rings, shattering the stillness and making Gemma's hand skip a bit against her back. "You done?" Rose asks hurriedly, glancing back over her shoulder.

"I am now."

She rushes forward and snags the phone from the top of the bureau, where she'd thrown it right before the oh-so-fun confrontation with Lou's relatives.

"Marion, where the hell are you?" Louise's voice crackles through the phone. "It's five thirty, you were supposed to be in my room half an hour ago!"

"Shit," Rose mutters, spinning around until she finds the one lone digital clock in the room (hiding behind the lamp on the night table, as if it were scared of the throw pillows). "Give us two minutes and we'll be there." She clicks off the phone and turns to Gemma, who is already getting her kit together for the twenty-foot walk down the hallway. "My fault, I lost track of time," Rose mumbles, scooping the garment bag up in one arm, the makeup, hair supplies, and accessories bags in the other.

"Haven't we run enough this trip?" Gemma grumbles as Rose pushes her down the hall. One of her slippers falls off the stack in her arms, and without stopping Rose scoops it up and tosses it into one of her own bags. She bumps the door to Louise's room open with her hip.

"You can never have too much running," she says, motioning Gemma inside. She pauses herself then, taking in the rather chaotic scene before her. Lou is sitting on the window seat dressed in a bathrobe, a nail polish wand in one hand aimed relatively in the direction of her toes, a fan in the other waving at the other foot to dry said polish, and a cigarette dangling out of her mouth. Priya's holding onto the dresser for dear life as an attractive black woman pulls at the strings of the undergarments required for her traditional eighteenth century gown. The look on Priya's face screams 'get me out of this bloody contraption', while the woman doing the lacing looks rather apologetic. Louise's younger sisters are in the scene as well – Anna's on the bed with needles and thread hanging out of her mouth, putting the final touches on the long skirt that she's already wearing. Bridget's camped out in front of the mirror and is actively rimming her eyes with dark eyeliner, with the rest of her makeup scattered in puddles around her. Sitting on the settee is a red-headed woman, a little older than herself possibly, with her hair setting in curlers and flipping through a magazine. Out of all of them she seems the least fussed, and is making a face of incredulity at whatever she's reading in the tabloid. Gemma heads over to the settee herself and sits down on it next to the woman, dropping her costume and wings onto the floor. Not quite sure where to start, Rose latches onto one thing and just decides to start talking. "Lou, I thought you quit smoking," she says, a slight accusatory tone in her voice.

Louise drops the fan and pulls the cigarette from her mouth, blowing a stream of smoke out the open window. "I did. So did my mom but where do you think I got these from?"

"It's true," Anna pipes up, speaking around the needles clenched in her teeth. "Mom fell off the wagon and has been smoking like a chimney since we got here. Dad's family has a tendency to do that to her, and, well, everyone always says that Lou and Mom are awfully alike."

"God help ya," Priya jokes, then winces. "Ow! That bloody hurts!"

"Sorry," the woman behind her says, putting a little slack into the strings.

"Looks like we got some new additions," Rose continues, dropping her own bags on the bed and flopping down next to them.

Priya tosses her head backwards. "This one behind me, who I suspect is getting some sadistic pleasure out of yanking my strings, is Dr. Martha Jones. We went to med school together. And the other is Martha's friend – "

"Donna Noble," the redhead cuts Priya off as she puts down her tabloid and smiles in Rose's direction. "And you are?"

"Marion McCrimmon," she replies, the alias falling off her tongue far too easily. She doesn't like that habit. "That's my little sister Gemma sitting next to you." Gemma just waves in their direction, her wings are far too distracting at the moment.

"Lovely to meet you," Donna nods.

Bridget turns around, her black hair teased to extraordinary lengths, leaving her looking like she'd decided to shove a fork in an electrical socket. "Gemma, did Luca ever apologize for pushing you in the canal?"

Gemma drops the wings and crosses her arms over her chest, a pout blossoming on her face. "No. The jerk."

"What did you end up doing to him?" Priya asks, her corset finally laced up and giving her an oddly straight-backed posture.

Gemma tilts her head from side to side, obviously stalling, at least in Rose's eyes. Eventually Gemma sighs and drops her arms. "I smacked him in the face. He deserved it, especially after teasing me that it looked like I'd wet myself, which wasn't true!"

Donna nods in Gemma's direction. "Girl after my own heart here."

Gemma shrugs. "When Mum was alive she would have done the exact same thing."

"It's true," Rose chimes in. "Mum really didn't care who you were, how powerful you were, if you were the bleedin' Prime Minister or not, if you deserved a slap, you were going to get one." She quirks her lips in a slight grin, thinking of the most infamous slap of all. Of course, not knowing the difference between twelve hours and twelve months probably merited a lot worse than just a slap round the face. The Doctor probably hadn't realized just how easy he'd made out in that instance.

"God, that sounds like my mum," Martha says, a grin crossing her face. "Smacked a guy once right on the steps outside a building once in full view of half the world." She adjusts Priya's corset briefly, making sure it all lies straight. "So how'd you meet this degenerate here?" she asks in Rose's direction with a teasing jab at Priya's back.

"I am not a degenerate," Priya fires back, jerking away and tugging at her corset herself.

"I'm not going to mention how many times you showed up to hospital just a bit hung over," Martha says with a wink.

"That's stress relief, that is."

Rose just giggles at their antics. "Actually, Lou and I met first. We were both temping – oh where were we again?"

"Somewhere in the Prudential building. Beyond that it's a bit of a blank; can't tell you how many places we worked at then," Lou shrugs, stubbing out her cigarette in a makeshift ashtray. "If I recall right we were taking just about every job the agency was offering us."

"Sounds about right," Rose nods. Those first few months in Boston were rough on her, with all of the things that had to be done – finding a flat for the two of them, getting Gemma into a public school, the bitterly cold weather that was beginning to sweep through the streets, and trying to find a job when her history and papers were spotty enough that if you poked in the right place the entire thing would collapse underneath their own weight. Then she met Louise and Priya, and finally it seemed that the world was getting back on its axis. "So yeah, I met Lou first, then I got to know Pree from there, and the rest is history, I guess."

"See? Super temps. We're everywhere," Donna says, giving Martha a knowing glance. The other woman snickers slightly, there's an obvious private joke there.

"But speaking of Pree," Rose continues, sliding off the bed, "You said you were going to help me get into this sari." She pulls the outfit from the bags and holds it up, waving the pieces about like a dark and glittery flag.

"Put the under skirt on and we'll work from there," Priya replies as she attempts to bend over in the corset to grab part of her costume.

As she darts behind a folding screen to change she hears Gemma's voice rise above the clamor. "You've got purple nail polish. That is too cool."

"Thanks," Donna answers back. "Do you want to use some for tonight?"

"Could I? It'd really match my outfit."

"Put the outfit on first!" Rose hollers, hoping to get her attention. "And don't forget the leggings!"

"Yes, Mum," Gemma calls back sarcastically.

Once the simple black underskirt is tied on, Rose runs back out, tossing the sari in Priya's direction. "Here you go. Work your magic."

"What'd you do on your back there?" Priya asks, tapping a finger against the gold glitter as she begins to wrap the fabric around Rose's hips.

"Thought it'd match the sari," Rose shrugs, feigning indifference.

"Nice."

Eventually all of the girls are in their costumes, makeup done prettily, masks fastened to their heads, and a flurry of skirts in purple, green, silver, black, gold and pink, brown, and more. It takes time, but it's worth it, and when Rose gives herself a quick glance in the mirror she likes what she sees. Part of her looks alien, draped in gauzy black fabric that hides some skin and exposes others, with the gold and black mask covering her eyes and swooping feathers up above her head, and yet part of her looks more familiar than it ever has. She twists and glances over her shoulder at the sonnet on her back, and smiles.

"Shit!" Louise calls out, strapping on a modern metal watch that clashes very much with her dress, strapless, mint green with black polka dots and a black cummerbund, flaring out to land at her knees. "Ten after seven, we've got to move, ladies! They wanted us out by the water entrance ten minutes ago!"

"Running again," Gemma grumbles as they're hustled out the door and down the hallway, heading for the stairs. It's halfway down the utility stairway to the ground floor that a wave of dizziness hits Rose, making her feet slip on the marble. Her vision cuts out, and all of a sudden the scene changes.


	11. Chapter 9: She Moves in Mysterious Ways

**Nine: She Moves in Mysterious Ways**

**"It's all right, it's all right**

**It's all right**

**She moves in mysterious ways."**

**U2, 'Mysterious Ways'**

**

* * *

**

_The most intriguing thing is the man sitting a couple of steps below her, staring at her as if there's nothing more important to him in the universe than her. And oh, this time she knows him. He's got his own mask on, simple black satin that obscures most of his eyes and nose, with his really great hair poking out in all directions. Rose looks down again, and sees his hand grasping her left one, his thumb stroking over the very visible ink marks on the back of it._

_Rather suddenly the man whips his mask off, revealing more pale face with big brown Bambi eyes staring right at her. His lips move, saying something, but there's a sound like rushing wind in her ears and she can't understand. His eyes are so familiar, deep and old, and all she wants to do is fall right into them and keep falling._

_The urge to fall..._

"Oh God!"

"Marion!"

"Shit, someone catch her!"

"Rose!"

The next thing she knows is that she's sitting on the marble steps, with her head down and gasping for breath. She can feel the ache in her eyes, and knows that if she opens them they'll be glowing again. Rose takes a few deep breaths, trying to calm her racing heart and regain some sort of composure.

"Hey, look at me, look at me," she hears Martha say, feeling one of her hands cupping the side of her face. With an almighty mental push she forces the green glow down, back behind her eyes and into her brain (where it's always taken up residence? Because it feels _old_, older than the Earth itself). When she feels ready, Rose opens her eyes to see Martha's silver-masked face close to hers. "Can you tell me what happened?" Martha asks, her professional doctor's persona coming to the forefront even though she's currently sporting a flowing, light grey and white strapless dress that brings to mind goddesses of olden days instead of a trained medic.

"Got dizzy for a moment there," Rose says, staring at the sea of concerned faces around her. Gemma's pushed her way to the forefront of the mass and is clutching onto the edge of her sari, her teeth worrying her lower lip. It's a bit jarring with the flittering fairy look she's got going on, a short dress in various shades of purple and a rough edge at the bottom, and her black wings bob nervously. "Bit of vertigo, I guess."

"Have you been feeling like that lately?" Martha continues, gently pulling at her eyelids through the mask to check her pupils. She shakes her head no, and it's true. Of all of the odd things that have been happening to her of late, even the time when she had deliberately attempted to make contact with the TARDIS, none of them have felt like this, this sudden shock like she'd been plunged headfirst into a snowbank. Martha purses her lips, thinking quick. "Could just be dehydration or low blood sugar levels, but there's no way to tell without more extensive tests," she says. "Maybe you should rest here for a minute, get your feet back under you."

"I'll be all right," Rose says, using the banister to haul herself to her feet. "Every second that goes by I feel better and better. Besides, they're expecting us outside." Gemma slips an arm around her waist, giving her that extra little steadiness which is just what she needs right now.

"If you're sure," Priya says doubtfully. "However, the minute you feel dizzy again you find the nearest one of us, either Martha or I, and we'll get you upstairs and check you out."

"Sounds good," Rose smiles, taking a tentative step downwards. As her footing gets surer, the small crowd moves down and out of the stairway, weaving through tables and underneath the overhang. When they get outside, the two doctors unanimously agree that Rose needs to sit down for a few more minutes with some water, so she finds herself sitting on a padded bench in one corner of the receiving area, away from the torches that push away the deepening night and slightly out of the way of the building crowd.

"Dizzy?" Gemma asks, standing in front of the bench as Rose carefully sips at her lime-spiked sparkling water.

Rose takes a quick look around, making sure that the others are out mingling with the arriving crowd, sipping at champagne, munching on hors d'oeuvres, altogether distracted from her for just a moment. "More like déjà vu, really," she says. "It's like, as soon as I stepped in that stairwell I had such a feeling that I knew that place, that I'd been there before. Think it overwhelmed me a bit."

"Your eyes went green again," Gemma says. "I could see it through your eyelids. Don't think anyone else noticed though. Someone would've said something."

"Thought so," Rose nods. "I could feel it when I sort of came back to myself. And you're right, someone would comment on that. Probably say that I'm an alien," she says ruefully.

"Did it feel the same as the other times?" she prods a little more.

"Not really." Rose frowns briefly and stares out at the canal that glints and waves in the lamplight, seeing the boats with their dolled up passengers riding along past the magnificent palaces, rowdy spots of unexpected color appropriate for this crazy night. "Come to think of it, none of them have felt _exactly_ the same." She turns her gaze back to her sister.

Gemma bites her lip and sits down on the bench next to Rose. "It all started with that weird dream at Christmas, right? Did anything happen to you at Christmas that might have made all this happen?"

Rose just keeps looking at her sister. There's one small thing she's been keeping to herself for a while. She doesn't really know why. Maybe it was the fear of being looked at as if she were really losing her marbles this time. Or maybe it was one of those little, precious things that she held close to her heart to warm her in the times when she was feeling most alone. But this is her _sister_, the one who's been there for her through all of her good moments and some of her worst. Even though she's quite young and doesn't always understand what's going on, she's always managed to make Rose feel better in her own, inimitable way. If anyone deserves to know what's happening, it's her. "I think it may have started earlier than that," Rose says slowly. "And not just in dreams."

"What d'you mean?"

She thinks back, searching for the right example to illustrate her little trick. "You remember when we first got to this universe? We had to take the taxi in the Faeroe Islands to get us off the beach."

"Yeah," Gemma says slowly, not quite seeing where this is going.

"Do you remember what the driver was saying to us?"

"That was almost three years ago. 'Course I don't remember. And anyway, he was speaking some sort of language, wasn't English though, that's for sure."

Rose nods, her point slowly being proven. "He had asked us if we'd heard about what had happened on the TV a week before, something about an alien hoax that led to both the American President and the Prime Minister of England being assassinated within minutes of each other."

Gemma wrinkles her brow, not quite seeing it yet.

"When he spoke to me, I heard him speak quite clearly in English," Rose clarifies, watching the enlightenment and then the puzzlement overtake Gemma's face.

"That doesn't make any sense," she says, which makes Rose smile just a bit.

"Normally, it wouldn't. However, it was one side effect of TARDIS travel – she manages to get into your head, acts as a translator. Do you think I'd managed to learn all of those alien languages for every planet I went to in this universe?"

"I just thought the Doctor played tour guide for you," she shrugs.

"A tour guide that ends you in gaol and then fleeing from near-mortal peril, maybe," Rose smirks. "But that's the first thing that I noticed – ever since we got back here I've been hearing everything in English, like it's still being sent through a translator." She motions to a group of Japanese girls standing around in neon-coloured costumes. "What do you think they're saying now?"

"No idea," Gemma says.

"It's actually rather boring. They're talking about the glassware they bought on Murano earlier this afternoon."

Gemma looks back at Rose. "So you're hearing them in English now?" She nods. "So does that mean that you're sort of still hooked back into the TARDIS somehow?"

"I think so," Rose nods, sipping again at her water. "I have the very strong feeling that every odd thing that's happened, all of those strange dreams, the translating bits, are all because of the TARDIS. Somehow. I haven't figured out exactly _why_ yet though." There's a bit of a suspicion that it has something to do with the time she used that big yellow truck to rip open her heart, god only knows what could have happened then. But without something definite she can't be sure, and there's only one person in all the universes who could answer that for her.

"That's so weird," she says, sounding like the almost ten-year-old she actually is instead of the current sisterly support system.

"Don't forget the eye thing as well," Rose says, waving a hand in the direction of her face. "It's the same colour as the TARDIS rotor as well." Her other hand clutches the cool glass in her palm. "I think I was even once able to directly contact the TARDIS, about a month ago or so. It was just mentally, like a meditative sort of dream or something like that. But it felt so much like _her_, it couldn't have been anything else." She shrugs. "I tried to get her to pass a message on, to say that I was here and I was back, that I was going to find him, but all I could understand from her was 'give it time.' Not exactly a paragon of clarity, that. It was exciting at the time, like we'd finally had some success in this long trip we've been on, but now I'm wondering if I just dreamed the whole thing." A little bit of scepticism is healthy, she has repeatedly told herself. That scepticism however can't shake the feeling in her bones that she's getting close, closer than she's been in years.

"But anything connected with the TARDIS is good, right?"

"Most certainly." Rose stares into the distance again, some more flashes of her vision on the stairs flying past her eyes. "This time though, what I was seeing on the stairway that made me slip, the Doctor was definitely there in the vision. Staring right up at me, looking exactly like he always did."

"Is that a good thing or a bad thing?" Gemma asks, stealing a sip of water from Rose's glass. Her face crinkles up as the bubbles from the water go up her nose briefly.

"Dunno," Rose shrugs. "I did say I had the feeling that something was coming." Oh, there's that hope coming out again.

"Him?" she says incredulously. "And now? That doesn't make any sense!"

"It never does," Rose says solemnly, although there is a bit of a twinkle in her eye. "I think you're right though; he's not going to be here tonight. You and I are going to have a bit more searching to do. We'll just have to pick up the trail again. How does New Zealand sound?" She thinks of the TARDIS key sitting upstairs on the dresser with a grin and the two girls share a decisive nod.

Neither one of them remembers the old adage that things happen when you least expect them to.

* * *

Donna, champagne glass clutched in one hand, sidles over to Martha through the crowds. "What do you think of her?" she asks, nodding her head in Marion McCrimmon's direction, watching her and her younger sister sitting on the bench in the corner.

Martha tilts her head, subtly tugging at the strapless neckline of her dress to keep it from moving. She's far more used to wearing a practical jacket and trousers than this floor length dress. "She seems nice, for all of the five minutes we got a chance to talk. Pree's always had good judgment when it comes to people though."

"But there's just something…" Donna trails off, sipping her champagne and hoping that she doesn't drop any onto her own dress. The short purple frock she found in the wardrobe of the TARDIS is absolutely perfect, and she doesn't want to take the chance of getting it wrecked. Hell, there is the distinct possibility it could have come from ancient Rome itself; the gold clasps at the shoulders look awfully authentic. She isn't going to let one bad experience in Pompeii spoil her fun with Romanesque clothing. "I don't know how to describe it. Wistful, maybe? Slightly out of step with the rest of this crowd here?"

"I think wistful works," Martha says. "But there's something more, you know?"

"Yeah…or maybe we're looking for mysteries when there aren't any," Donna frowns. "And whose fault is that? Still, better to be safe than sorry."

"Speaking of which, I'm going to go see if he's shown up yet," Martha says, turning around in a swirl of skirts and heading back inside. "I just hope he remembers we've got invites this time, no breaking in required."

Donna nods after her, her gaze still drawn to the McCrimmon sisters. While she rationally knows she's most likely seeing things that aren't there, part of her wants to dig just a little further. And if nothing pops up, well, then she'll know that she's seeing things. Which may not be a bad thing in this case. Quickly, she fills up a small plate with various sorts of nibbles and brings it over to Marion. "Here you go," she says, offering up the plate. "Thought it might make you feel a bit better."

"Thanks," Marion replies with a smile, and takes the plate from her. Her fingers hover over it for a few moments until she settles on a piece of raw tuna.

"So if you don't mind my asking," Donna continues, dragging over a chair for herself, "where are you two from? I know you met the girls in Boston, but you sure don't sound like you're from the States."

Marion swallows her tuna and shakes her head. "No, we're from London actually," she says. "Left after our parents passed though."

"I'm sorry."

"Thanks. Couldn't stand to be in the house after that, so we took our inheritance and decided to travel about a bit, show this one here all the sights out there."

Donna smiles; she understands that feeling. She'd felt it herself after her own dad died. Maybe that was just one of the many things that had spurred her to find the Doctor after turning down his first offer. "I hear you. Been around a fair bit myself." She turns to Gemma this time, currently stealing some food from her sister's plate. "What's your favorite place out of all the ones you've been to?" she asks her.

Gemma chews thoughtfully. "Rome was fun," she says through a mouthful of food. "And we got to do a safari somewhere in Africa, with camping and everything. Ooh, and then there was the rose valley in Bulgaria, it smelled amazing, all of these fields of roses. And then there was the p—" She cuts herself off abruptly, this time popping something cheesy into her mouth that Marion's just held up.

"You're awfully well travelled," Donna says, missing the look of warning Marion's shooting at her sister.

(Rose just knew Gemma was going to slip and start talking about one of the planets they'd visited in the other universe. Sometimes her little sister is entirely too predictable.)

"We've been travelling a while," Gemma shrugs nonchalantly. "Got to go to a lot of places. Where's the best place you've been?"

"Er…" Donna wracks her brain, trying to come up with some place that they've travelled to that wasn't 1) alien or 2) 50,000 years in the future. "Well, Pompeii was a hell of a time," she finally says.

"We almost made it there," Gemma says. "Got a bit sidetracked on one of the islands though." She shoots a glare at her sister, who just raises her hands as if to say it wasn't her fault.

"Do you girls have anything planned next?" she continues, that odd feeling in her stomach calming down as they chatter on. There's a strange sort of feeling that seems to hover around Marion, but she's got no idea what it is. Her gut's saying that it's harmless though, that the world isn't going to end, the party's not going to be interrupted, and so they can relax and have a nice evening (for once…).

"Croatia." "New Zealand," the girls say at the same time. The two trade a look, and even though the mask is hiding the top half of her face it's apparent that Marion's look is one of scepticism. "Spin for it?" she eventually says, and Gemma nods.

"Spin for it," she echoes.

"It's just one of our things," Marion says to Donna, shrugging. "Helps us figure out where we're going." She snorts lightly, staring out over the darkened canal. The stars aren't visible here, Donna notes, too much light coming from below to see what's up in the sky aside from the moon. "It's took us this far; might as well stick with what's working."

"Girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do," Donna nods sagely.

T.B.C….


	12. Chapter 10: The Arrival and the Reunion

Contrary to what the chapter title says, this piece does not contain the reunion. It's just a title I thought was fitting. You can hear this piece at www dot youtube dot com / watch?v=RJRsWErKCxA. Please don't shoot me. ;)

**Ten: The Arrival and the Reunion**

Rather carelessly the Doctor knots the bowtie around his neck (if he had any idea as to what was going to be occurring later on this evening, maybe he would have paid a little more attention to detail). He sighs to himself and tugs at the coat of his tuxedo, straightening out the lines. "Every time," he mutters to his reflection in the wardrobe room mirror. "Every time I wear this, something bad happens."

A passing thought flies by, and he thinks that maybe he could be a little safer and grab one of the outfits his previous incarnations used to wear. Surely one of them would make an ideal costume, wouldn't they? But he shakes his head and shoves the idea back. If anything went wrong tonight-not that he was expecting anything to go wrong but he never knew with the sort of life he had-the tux would be capable of handling anything thrown at it.

He quickly glances down at his black trainers, seeing that they're tied on tightly, and nods to himself. Now or never. The Doctor makes his way back through the inner passages of the TARDIS, not stopping until he's outside the front door with his feet standing on Venetian cobblestones. 'You know,' he thinks, his brain wandering back inside to where that mysterious little book is still stashed in its shelf in the console, 'Martha and Donna really should be all right. We're in their time, on Earth, and Martha's got friends there. They'll be perfectly fine.'

But as the Doctor turns around to head back inside, the door to the TARDIS promptly slams itself shut on him. He purses his lips and shoots a glare at the glass windows in front of his face. "Right," he says, a nasty feeling settling in the pit of his stomach. He jiggles the handle and, unsurprisingly, finds it locked. "Come on," he chides the TARDIS in one of the sternest voices he can muster. "Let me back in."

The image he gets in his head in response is one of a giant hand pointing in the direction of the _palazzo_, and the word 'GO' practically rings in his skull.

(All right, maybe she has to do just one more thing for her stubborn Time Lord…)

"No," he fires back, crossing his arms over his chest.

The image shows itself even stronger than before, implying with great certainty that he won't be let back into the TARDIS's hallowed halls until he at least makes an appearance at the party.

"Look, I'm sure Martha and Donna appreciate your looking out for their welfare by wanting me there, but honestly, there's a better chance of nothing happening if I'm _not_ there," the Doctor says, bringing up the second point in his argument. Still, the door doesn't budge, and he sighs heavily.

"Can I at least go back in to get the book?" he asks, knowing that when his ship is in one of _these_ moods there's no arguing with her. You were lucky not to get your hand burned off while navigating when she was like this, and frankly he didn't feel like risking his rather great hair (if he did say so himself) at the moment.

The hand is back in his head again, and this time he can practically feel the shoving at his back pushing him in the right direction. The Doctor huffs lightly; he couldn't find any better proof than this that his ship was most definitely a female. He waggles his index finger at the door. "When I get back – yes, from the party – you and I are going to have to have a long chat about this." With that he turns and walks off down the street, the lamps holding back the evening darkness.

The streets of Venice are a twisted maze on a good day, but on this night it seems that around every corner is lurking something unknown, whether it be a giant (a man on stilts dressed in bright satins and a papier-mâché mask), or an androgyne (a canoodling couple so tied up in each other that it's impossible to tell where one ends or the other begins); the feeling of walking somewhere unknown is pronounced. When it comes down to it, really, Earth is just as alien as the rest of them, the Doctor thinks, a small smile on his face.

After two wrong turns and an encounter with a couple of disgruntled _carabinieri _he finds himself at the back entrance of the _palazzo_. It's apparent that most of the guests, the ones who are there to see and be seen, are taking the water entrance at the front. That wasn't his sort of style, however, and so he joins the short queue waiting to get in through the utilitarian wooden door.

"Your invitation, _signore_?" a man dressed in the typical garb of an eighteenth century footman asks him as he reaches the door. The Doctor pats himself down, finally finding the invitation stashed in the inside pocket of the tuxedo jacket.

"Here you go," he says, giving the footman a winning grin. Yes, he was invited, but there's a part of him that still feels like he needs to sneak into the place.

The footman takes the invitation and looks it over, nodding a couple of times to himself. When he hands the invitation back the Doctor takes it and begins to walk through the doors; however he's stopped by the footman once more. "What now?" he sighs.

"Your mask, _signore_?" the footman says, an expectant look on his face.

The Doctor pauses for a brief second – he'd totally forgotten about that part of the invite. "You know, I don't think a mask is necessary," he says. "No one here knows me so there's no reason to hide my face."

The footman shakes his head, and reaches into a large basket on a stool next to him. "No mask, no entry," he mutters, holding out a black satin eye mask. The Doctor arches an eyebrow at him. He's joking, right? He crosses his arms over his chest and proceeds to give the footman his best glare.

However, the footman isn't fazed, and he just nods his head towards one corner. Without warning, and with the stealth of a giant cat, one of those cats the Doctor really doesn't like, a security guard walks over to them, hand clutching something ominous at his side. The Doctor bites his lip, holding his tongue back. It's not worth it to get into a fight just over a silly piece of satin, especially considering that Donna might forcibly regenerate him if he doesn't make it through those doors. "Fine," he groans, plucking the mask from the footman's hand. He puts it over his face and snaps the elastic around the back of his head, leaving his hair in a state of disarray that almost seems to defy gravity a bit. With a nod and a slightly smarmy look, the footman moves to the side and waves the Doctor in.

"_Benvenuto a Carnevale_," the footman calls after him, his words getting lost in the music that's beginning to play. The music just adds to the atmosphere, and the Doctor has to admit that whoever designed the theme for this party did one hell of a job with it. The arches that surround three sides of the courtyard are draped with swags of shimmery multicolored and embroidered fabric, giving the place the feeling of being inside an oversized tent rather than a Renaissance palace. There are lamps and torches set up around the courtyard floor, scattered here and there, and somehow they manage to look more like candles than just boring old electric lights. The poles that the lamps and torches are mounted on are wrapped in ivy, trailing up the wires and overflowing into plant pots and small fountains nearby. There are draped tables set up all around, both under overhangs and in the centre of the courtyard, with the stars and the night air shining above them.

"Very nice," he murmurs. Opposite him, on the far side of the courtyard, he can see the entrance with the water beyond it. More lights are spilling from that doorway, and it's obvious that most of the people are congregating around there still. For a moment he wonders if he should go out there, mingle with the crowd, but then shakes his head and turns to the bar. As he's being served his lime and soda, he sees Martha steal in through the door and scan the large room. Even with the silvery mask and evening gown he still knows that it's her.

He gives her a wave, bringing her eyes over his way and making her face light up with a smile. She weaves through the tables and the sparse crowd that's migrated inside, heading right for him. "You made it!" she says as soon as she's close enough.

"Of course I did. Did you really think I wasn't going to?" He declines to mention that he had to be locked out of the TARDIS in order to show up there; it's not really an important tidbit of information.

The twist on Martha's lips is a rightfully sceptical one. "Well…"

"All right, fair point," he grudgingly concedes. "But I'm here now, that's what matters." He looks her over with an approving nod. "Very nice outfit, by the way."

Martha smiles and does a little spin, sending the pale-coloured skirts flaring out around her. "Thanks. Couldn't resist it when I saw it in the wardrobe room. I may have to borrow it for a little while; I think Tom'd appreciate it."

"No doubt. So…anything interesting going on?" the Doctor asks casually, supposedly innocent eyes scanning the courtyard and the handful of costumed kids who have just run in from outside.

"Oh, no. Don't you dare," Martha admonishes him, moving directly in front of him and crossing her arms over her chest.

"What?" he fires back.

"You are not going to go looking for trouble here tonight," she says, giving him a pointed glare that says she knows all too well what he's thinking. "It's going to be a nice, if slightly raucous party, and there are no mysteries or rampaging aliens showing up that need your undivided attention."

This time the Doctor manages not to pout, knowing that it'd serve to make Martha even touchier. "I'm not going looking for anything. You should know that this tux is jinxed though. Trouble always happens when I'm wearing it."

She reaches out and grabs his arm, pleading eyes staring out of her silver mask. "I know. But seriously, Doctor, the only trouble I've seen tonight was a girl falling down the stairs, and I'm pretty damn sure that has absolutely nothing to do with aliens."

"All right," he sighs, sounding a bit put-upon (even though it's really an act. It's worth it just to see Martha's eyes light up like that). "I'll not go looking for trouble. However, if something happens…"

Martha grins. "Then I'll expect to see you there attempting to save the day." Her hand slips off his arm and she backs away a step. "All right, back to being a social butterfly. Thank you," she says, smiling again. With a twirl of skirts she slips back through the tables, moving around the cluster of kids, and then darts outside into the night again.

The Doctor wanders briefly about the courtyard, soon finding himself by the large curving staircase. With a shrug he begins to climb them, figuring that the upper level is as good a place as any to observe events from. And, possibly, keep a look out for anything a bit out of the ordinary.

Apparently, he's not the only one to have had this idea. There's already a good number of people milling about up in the balcony area, drinks in hand and merrily chatting away. The balcony looks the same as downstairs, with lanterns and brightly colored swags draped about the golden-coloured marble. He nods to himself and sips at his soda, deciding to investigate this level of the _palazzo_ in a little bit more detail. He barely manages three steps before –

"Hey, mate!"

The Doctor spins on his heel, only to see a group of young men clustered around a table by the arched line of windows looking out over the Grand Canal. He looks around briefly, then points at himself. "Yeah, you," one of the men dressed in a toga and crown of laurels says, waving him over. "We're having a bit of a chat and we need an op-opinion from a subjective – "

"Objective," the pirate next to him corrects.

"Yeah, what he said, point of view."

"I can try," the Doctor says, moving closer. "I may not have the answer you want to hear though."

"Truth hurts though," the pirate says, making the group nod in agreement.

"All right. Fire away," the Doctor nods.

"It's a question of good and evil, of what lurks inside men's souls and makes them do what they do, the how and why of matters of the heart, and what can desire…"

The pirate rolls his eyes, pinches the bridge of his nose, and glances at the Doctor. "He starts to babble when he's had a few."

"Ah," the Doctor replies knowingly, taking in the large amount of glasses on the table. "How about this?" he says, waving a hand in Caesar's face and cutting off the ramble which has taken a detour into Pythonesque logic. "I've seen things in my lifetime which could easily be considered as the devil, a force that could mess with humans' heads and drive them to do unimaginable things. And yet, sometimes the worst things that have ever happened out there have come solely from the minds of man. So how is it explained?"

"Good question," Caesar nods, mulling over things. In a few seconds he kicks another chair in the Doctor's direction and waves at him. "Take a seat. I can tell we've got a hell of a conversation brewing here."

The Doctor shrugs and sits down. Maybe this is just the sort of distraction he needs tonight. And he's always up for a conversation that takes the brain down those twisty and turny pathways of thought. "What's your name, by the way?" Caesar asks. "Mine's Neil."

"I'm the Doctor."

"Doctor what?"

"Just the Doctor."

"Oh, come on. You've got to have a name to go with that," Neil prods drunkenly.

"Just the Doctor," he insists, putting his soda down on the table with a little more force than normal.

"Please, it's _Carnevale_. If you don't want to give us your real name then make one up," Neil snorts, waving a hand around at the motley crew assembled around the table.

The Doctor rolls his eyes and tosses out a name, if only to remove the focus from him and bring it back to the more important questions of life, the universe, and everything. "Call me Dr. James McCrimmon then."

Neil's brow wrinkles, his crown of laurels sliding down practically into his eyes. "Oh, that's weird."

"What is?"

He shakes his head and pushes the crown out of his eyes. "Nah, the name just sounded like something I've heard recently. Buggered if I could remember where though."

The pirate chuckles and pushes another drink in Neil's direction. "Have some more rum. We've got some chatting to do."

* * *

"You know, it's a bit strange," Rose muses with a smile on her face as she leans in the doorway to the courtyard. Most of the partygoers are inside already, but she's staying out here for a few more moments, savouring the darkness at her back with the light spilling out around her.

"What's strange?" Priya asks, standing next to her in the doorway. It's obvious to Rose that her hovering is out of concern, which is rather nice to feel.

Rose shakes her head briefly. "For some strange reason, it feels like one of those moments. You know, when you're looking at something and you suddenly think 'how did I get here?' That the life you're living now is so strange and mad and wonderful and so far off the one you pictured back when you were thirteen." There's more to add to that list, Rose knows. The adventures through space, time, parallel universes, with aliens and captains and lovers and family, but it'd be too much to explain right now. But the feeling of 'I can't actually believe I'm here' was ever-present tonight. Her eyes flicker over the amassed crowd, absorbing all of the sights before her.

"I know what you mean," Priya nods, crossing her arms over her chest. "I never imagined ever I'd be able to go to some fancy party like this. I feel like I'm going to wake up and realize that this is all some pretty dream and I really fell asleep on top of a table in the break room while going for a coffee. Then Dr. Holloway's going to wall in with the rest of Cardiac on her tail yelling at me as to why her patient had been brought upstairs thirty seconds later than he was supposed to. If she acts like that at work, I can't imagine how her husband puts up with her at home. Anyway, yeah, sorry for the diversion, but I do get it. Sometimes it pays to have friends in high places, huh?"

"That it does," Rose laughs, linking one of her arms with Priya's crossed one. "Come on, time to party," she grins, and drags the two of them into the light.

**T.B.C…**


	13. Chapter 11: Zanies and Fools

**Eleven: But the World is Full of Zanies and Fools…**

**"But the world is full of zanies and fools**

**Who don't believe in sensible rules,**

**And won't believe what sensible people say**

**And because these daft and dewy-eyed dopes**

**Keep building up impossible hopes**

**Impossible things are happening every day."**

**_Impossible_, Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella**

**

* * *

**

The party is in full swing a couple of hours later, the dance floor vibrating from the footsteps of costumed revelers, the strings of lights and lanterns twinkling against the darkness, the waiters coming around with trays of little nibbles and ever-flowing champagne, and the loud clatter of people talking. But after the highly eventful start to the night, it had turned out to be just your average party. Which isn't a bad thing, Rose muses. Sometimes a little calmness does wonders for the body.

While Gemma has taken off for parts unknown in the _palazzo _with kids her age so they could play, the women have staked out a table near the water entrance, right under the first floor overhang, and set up camp there, occasionally stealing a platter of whatever was nearest from passing staff. And as conversations are wont to do, what had started out as a highly academic and professional sounding conversation had quickly evolved into a 'who's got the weirdest London story' debate. This may have possibly been spurred on by Priya, who is always insistent that her story about ending up on the moon is true, and now, finally, she's got backup.

"Walking blobs of fat," Donna smirks, twirling her gilded mask around by the cord.

"Ooh, I remember that," Martha winced. "One of Tom's aunts suddenly started sprouting little baby blobs right in the middle of a family barbeque. It wasn't a pretty sight."

"All right, next," Lou says, ever the sceptic. She shoots her roommate a challenging look, daring her to trot out the same old story.

"You know what I'm going to say," Priya grins, tilting her champagne in her roomie's direction. "Hospital, on the moon."

"And I will vouch for her," Martha tosses in. "Between the moon, the upside-down rain, the space rhinos- "

"Space rhinos," Rose mutters with an arched eyebrow. She's seen many a strange thing in her life, but some things (or, possibly, the way humans describe these strange things) will always give her a bit of pause. Space rhinos included.

"Apparently some sort of intergalactic police or mercenaries to my best understanding," Martha shrugs, her voice almost too casual. Rose resists the urge to call her on it; it's not the right time. Maybe if they're still around tomorrow, she could pick her brain a little more. Because it sounds like exactly the sort of mess the Doctor would get himself into, and maybe it could be one more piece to add into the puzzle. "Your turn," Martha nods in her direction.

Rose smirks and sips at her drink. "I know Pree and Lou know this, but I used to work in a shop. Henrik's right in London. Well one night, I'm there a little late taking the lottery money down to the man collecting it, when all of a sudden the shop window dummies stashed down in the basement start to move."

"That'd be enough to put me off of shopping for a while," Donna says, cringing a bit as she spins her mask around on the table. It was messing up her hair anyway.

"Seriously," Rose agrees. "Anyway, I ran for it and made it out of the building. Not thirty seconds later, when I'm still right across the street, there's this loud bang and all of a sudden the building's on fire." A simplified version of the story, yes, but it's the same idea.

"While that sounds dangerous," Lou points out, "an explosion isn't quite as weird as fat blobs. It may not have even been caused by something weird or alien. They could have been robots, or something like that."

"And you're such an expert on robots and science?" Rose shoots back with a grin. It's a common fact that Louise is not well known for her scientific brain, and may have possibly failed a couple of semesters back in high school, something that she is inordinately proud of. "Trust me, nothing on Earth could have made those things walk about like that." Not to mention the most distinct alien of them all that she had encountered there.

"If you say so," Lou shrugs, although there is a bit of a smiling glint in her eyes. "All right, Martha, your turn, and it can't be a repeat of anything anyone else has said."

Martha thinks for a few seconds, then her face clouds over. "It's not the happiest of incidences, but it's an easily verifiable one," she says, her gaze firmly locked on the gauzy tablecloth. Then her eyes shoot back up, and every can see the sudden sobriety in them. "The Ghosts. The Cybermen that came out of Canary Wharf. I think everyone in London was affected by that in some way or another."

An uncontrollable shiver skates down Rose's back, and she can feel her breaths start to speed up. It's not fair; those few words should not have the power to bring her right back there, to make her relive those memories of one of the worst days in her life. She digs her nails into her palms in an attempt to stop the shuddering. "Yeah," she says shakily. Suddenly she pushes her chair back and gets up in a flurry of black gauze and silver and gold sequins. "I'll be back, just going to get some fresh air," she mutters, and rushes out the water entrance.

The rest of the women trade a look. "What was that about?" Donna whispers (as much as one can whisper and still be heard in the middle of a party).

Priya glances over at Lou. "Remember that guy she lost?" she asks, leaning in close as if it's some great secret.

Lou's brow wrinkles in puzzlement. "I thought you said he left though, not that he was dead by Cyberman."

"All she said was that they went their separate ways. That could mean just about anything. From what it sounds like though, it wasn't a voluntary separation. Which tells me that he's probably dead or was turned into one of those things."

Donna waves a hand towards the door. "So all of that's over a guy?" She sighs and rolls her eyes. "There's always one at every party, isn't there?"

Lou pushes her chair back with a rough grating noise. "I'm gonna go see how she is."

Outside, Rose dashes her hands back through the tangled mess of gelled and hair sprayed-brunette waves on her head. Usually, she handles the memories better, but something about tonight just triggered it, and if she hadn't left when she did the floods of tears would have started. She rubs her hands over her bare arms, bringing out the writing that's in close reach to her. She lets it fade within seconds, but for that brief moment she wants the reassurance of all of her stories.

A hand falls heavily on her shoulder, and she twists to see a bunch of silver-ringed fingers attached to an arm leading up to Louise's concerned face. "You okay, sweetie?" she asks.

"Yeah. Sorry," she says, scrubbing carefully at the skin below her mask, making sure the traces of any lingering tears are gone. "I don't usually get emotional like that."

"S'okay. Happens to all of us now and again." Rose just nods in agreement, not willing to say anything more. "Seems like that was a bad time for everyone," Lou continues, a bit awkwardly. "Did it have anything to do with that guy?"

"How did you know about _him?_" Rose yelps. She couldn't remember ever mentioning the exact details to Lou (not that she'd believe it anyway).

"Umm…" Lou bites at her lip and eventually sighs in defeat. "All right, Pree told me."

Rose groans. "Why am I not surprised? So much for the confidentiality of the medical profession."

"She just said what you said on the plane. Everything else is just guessing, but seriously, honey, it's kind of obvious that you lost a guy. Escaping from the intern through a window, that ring any bells? We just kinda put two and two together when we saw your face after the Cybermen were mentioned." Lou crosses her arms over her chest, obviously satisfied with her argument.

'Yeah, two and two together and came up with five,' Rose thinks with a mental eye-roll. Still, given the limited information they had, it was actually still fairly close to the mark. "All right, fair point," she concedes, then sighs again. "God, it was years ago, now. I should be able to control it a bit better after so long."

"You lost someone you loved," Lou says, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. "It's always gonna be hard."

"I think I might have lost myself that day," she says softly, resting her head on her friend's shoulder.

"Yeah, but the world keeps spinning, and all we can do is get up and keep moving." Rose picks her head up and shoots Lou a glance. Odd choice of words from her. Oddly appropriate, rather. "So you going to be okay?" she asks again.

"Yeah, I think I will," Rose nods. She quickly pats at her hair, attempting to bring some sort of order to mass of waves and settles her mask back into place. "You really are an old romantic at heart though, aren't you?" she says with a sly look.

Lou shrugs. "Some people find it easy to believe in aliens." She nods back towards the doorway inside. "That lot in there is proof of that, but they've seen things I haven't. But I know what I have seen, you know? I've always been a bit of a sap, and I'm a sucker for a good love story."

"'_If this be error and upon me proved/I never writ, nor no man ever loved_,'_" _Rose quotes, eyes flicking briefly skyward.

"Sonnet 116," she nods. "One of my favorites. Read it at my uncle's wedding actually…other side of the family, of course."

"Yeah." Rose rubs her arms, trying to bring a little bit of blood back to them. "It's freezing out here. Shall we go back?"

"You go ahead," Lou waves. "I'm going to hunt down someone for a smoke."

Rose nods and heads back in, plunking herself down at the table amid the curious looks of everyone else there. She ignores them with a smile and steeples her hands on the table before her. Whatever happened outside was her business and no one else's. "All right, ladies, where were we?"

* * *

"This is one of the first things I ever learned in university." Neil gesticulates wildly with his drink, making the assembled coterie lean out of the way of the flying droplets. The crowd has grown and spread out a bit, taking the seats at the small cocktail table with a few people perched on the deep-set windowsill behind them. "Out of all of the screenplays ever written, there are only ever two stories. One, a man on a mission, and two, a stranger comes to town."

"Well, patterns throughout all walks of life repeat. The common archetypes are so common that you can find them in every culture that's out there," the Doctor tosses back, "so it only makes sense that the same themes would keep popping up in films. However, that doesn't hide the fact that those themes are so vague that they can be applied to almost every situation, not just movies."

"But what about the oldest story of them all?" someone else says.

"You mean the one about the prozzies?"

"Oi! No, that's the oldest profession, you twonk."

"Ahem," the first man clears his throat, "I meant the real old one. I know you know the story: boy meets girl, boy and girl fall in love, boy loses girl. Which one would you put that under?"

Neil gulps and wrinkles his brow a bit. "Um…it could fall under both?" he stutters out, his argument falling to pieces beneath his feet. A groan rises up from the crowd.

"And besides, what if the lost girl comes back?" the Doctor tosses in. He may, just possibly, be speaking from personal memory, not that he'd admit that to himself. "How do you classify that into your themes?"

"It all depends on what the boy decides to do," Neil says, full of bravado – in the form of the free-flowing champagne he's been indulging in. "Does he welcome her back with open arms? Or does he do something else?"

"What if he thinks that she was safer where she was? That life with him was too dangerous, and that all he wants is for her to be safe. And if safe means making it impossible for them to ever see each other again?" No, he's definitely not speaking from personal experience here. Not at all. Besides, some things were unclassifiable.

"Hmm." Neil takes yet another sip and ponders for a few moments. "So basically, this hypothetical boy has the chance to get this girl he fancies back – no, she comes back, and he still blows it under the guise that it'd be safer for her."

"Sounds about right," the Doctor muses.

"Then he's a bloody coward," Neil states with a nod.

"Oi!" he yelps, then backs off. Remember, it's not personal. "How's he a coward?"

"He's got the chance to get his love back, and even though life is always dangerous and never safe (which is what makes life so fantastic) in his deluded mind he doesn't think it's worth the leap of faith to keep her with him, which is really just another sort of cowardice."

Neil's ramble is quite impressive for one as drunk as he is; however, it's not convincing the Doctor. "It's not cowardice if it's the difference between life and death," he insists, but then runs a hand through his hair. "What the hell, it's impossible anyway."

"Well, love is an impossible thing," Neil says with a sage nod.

"I meant the girl coming back in my…hypothetical story. It's impossible for her to come back."

"What's impossible?" Louise asks, rushing over to Neil's side in a flurry of mint green and glitter and nicks a cigarette from the open box on the table. She lights up quickly and exhales a stream of smoke, her eyes fluttering shut at the first rush of nicotine.

"Lost loves returning, apparently."

"Hypothetically," the Doctor interjects (mysterious books aside). "Hypothetically, it's impossible."

"Yeah, but you know what they say about impossible," Louise says, shoving her mask on top of her curls.

"What do they say?" the Doctor asks, unable to keep the slightest bit of sarcasm out of his voice.

"Well, zanies and fools and all that," she replies.

"I'm sorry?"

"Zanies and fools who don't believe in sensible rules are the ones that make impossible things happen," she clarifies, taking another drag.

Neil cackles at that one. "That, dear cousin, probably takes the prize for the most obscure pop culture reference of the year."

Louise snorts. "That's hardly pop culture, that's my childhood coming back to haunt me."

"This from the woman who still has a Care Bear on her bed?" She thumps him one on the shoulder, making his toga slip a bit and causing him to wince from the impact. "Ow!"

"This place is very strange," the Doctor mutters, finally giving in and snagging a passing by champagne glass from a server. If anything it's a good distraction from hypothetical stories that are most definitely not about him or anything he has or could be going through.

"But still," Neil continues, however the Doctor cuts him off with a watered down version of his Oncoming Storm glare.

"Drop it," he nearly growls. Even though Neil is in an addled state, he can't miss this sign and gracefully backs away.

"So, how are things going for you?" Neil asks Lou, who is currently in the midst of stealing some of his drink. She swallows quickly and shrugs.

"Oh, you know, the usual sort of family party. Avoiding the relatives, having plenty to drink, giving romantic counseling." She wrinkles her brow and gazes out the arched window behind him, getting in a quick glance of the canal. "Actually, it's pretty calm given our usual gatherings. No fist fights have broken out yet."

"That was only the once."

"Yeah, but you have to admit it made for a hell of a party."

The Doctor lets the familiar conversation wash over him briefly, using the moments to reset his brain and drag it out of the past and possible futures. Better to focus on the now, because that's the fun part. However, a sudden loud clash of horns and drums from a new band below echoes through the courtyard, making Louise straighten up and her eyes gleam. "Ooh," she grins. "Time to dance," she says, stubbing out her cigarette in the ashtray and skipping a bit in place. "It's tradition, they play it every year and everyone just piles onto the floor and goes a bit wild."

"Well, go on then," the Doctor smiles at her. She smiles back and runs off. The Doctor slides off his chair and moves to the rail of the balcony, watching as her polka-dot dress flies down the grand, curving staircase and practically leaps into the mass of humanity below. As the sounds of a modern update of a saltarello begin to play he lets his eyes shut, just briefly. It's that feeling, one he knows all too well even though he doesn't like to admit it. It's that urge to fall. Maybe it's just the result of looking down from on high, but the little niggling feeling at the back of his neck suggests that maybe it's something more, but he doesn't know what. Shrugging, he turns back towards the table, sliding easily into the conversation.

* * *

"No, Gemma," Rose insists from her seat at the table. The drums are going faster and faster as Gemma tugs at her hands, attempting to pull her onto the dance floor.

"Pleeeeeeease?" she wheedles with a grin, glitter flying about as her wings are knocked by a passing dancer. "Come on, it'll be fun," she says, pulling at Rose's hands with her own. Donna's already joined the crowd, and she knows Lou is headed for the melee as well. Priya and Martha have gracefully refrained, both a bit hampered by the unwieldy gowns they sport. Which just leaves Rose.

"Seriously, no," Rose repeats as the first horns start up, drawing a cheer from the crowd.

"Come on," Gemma says, and then leans in close. "The world doesn't end just because Rose Tyler dances," she whispers to her, low enough that only the two of them can hear it.

Rose groans and rolls her eyes. "I should have never told you that story," she mutters. They seem to be the magic words though, so she allows Gemma to pull her to her feet and into the dancing crowd, laughing all the way.


	14. Chapter 12: Reel Me In

**Twelve: Reel Me In…**

"**So reel me in, my precious girl**

**Come on take me home,**

'**Cause my body's tired of travellin'**

**And my heart don't wish to roam…"**

_**Love Don't Roam**_**, Murray Gold and Neil Hannon**

**

* * *

**

"No, Gemma," Rose insists from her seat at the table. The drums are going faster and faster as Gemma tugs at her hands, attempting to pull her onto the dance floor.

"Pleeeeeeease?" Gemma wheedles with a grin, glitter flying about as her wings are knocked by a passing dancer. "Come on, it'll be fun," she says, pulling at Rose's hands with her own. Donna's already joined the crowd, and Rose knows Lou is headed for the melee as well. Priya and Martha have gracefully refrained, both a bit hampered by the unwieldy gowns they sport. Which just leaves Rose.

"Seriously, no," Rose repeats as the first horns start up, drawing a cheer from the crowd.

"Come on," Gemma says, and then leans in close. "The world doesn't end just because Rose Tyler dances," she whispers to her, low enough that only the two of them can hear it.

Rose groans and rolls her eyes. "I should have never told you that story," she mutters. They seem to be the magic words, though, as she allows Gemma to pull her to her feet and into the dancing crowd, laughing all the way.

The dance is chaos defined, as much as one can define chaos. "What the hell sort of song is this?" Rose laughs as Louise barrels into her, taking her by the arms and pulling her into a spin.

"Beats the hell out of me!" Lou shouts back over the drumbeats and horns and hollering crowd. "I know there's a traditional name somewhere for it, but search me if I can remember it right now." The girls twist around again and then Lou spins off, disappearing into the crowd.

Amidst the beats and patterns of the semi-traditional song, Rose can see people are dancing however they wish out on the dance floor. There's a group waltzing to and fro as someone does a tango nearly into their path. In one corner is a girl executing the most perfect _grand jetes_, and somewhere in the middle of the crowd Lou is leaping about, her minty skirts flying out around her, as she tries (and fails, mightily, but doesn't care) to recreate the moves that she suspects are supposed to go with this dance. She thinks she can also see the flash of Donna's red hair moving about in the masses, but she isn't sure. There are other things that are more important at the moment.

Rose is a whirling dervish, just spinning around faster and faster as the music whips around her. The silk of the sari flies up around her knees, brushing against the people around her. No, she didn't want to dance, initially, but there is something so very liberating about it. As she spins she can almost forget the world around her, forget all of the hassles and stress and the wasted years. All that matters at this moment is the dance.

Her mind disassociates from the now a bit, with flashes of the past coming over her as she moves, her arms twisting above her head. Images pass through her mind, ephemeral and fading back into memory as quickly as they arrive. But there's meaning in all of this madness, and she just closes her eyes and takes them as they come.

Inevitably though, reality must come back with a crash, and as the music ends she opens her eyes to see Gemma in the midst of a heated argument with Luca yet again. She can't make out what's being said over the applause, but from the way Luca's pointing at Gemma's face and laughing Rose knows it can't be good. From practically out of nowhere Donna's voice asks in her ear "What's going on?" With a tilt of her head and a grimace on her face she nods towards the two kids, watching as Gemma smacks Luca's hand out of her way. Rose's head still feels a bit dizzy from the dance, and one hand goes up to rub at her temple through the feathers of her mask.

She's just about to move forward, to try and break up the fight, when Gemma shoves Luca away from her and with a shout darts through the crowd. Rose loses track of her for a few seconds, but then manages to find those black fairy wings bobbing their way past the band and up the staircase. "Oh, great," she sighs, picking up her skirts and getting ready to run after her, but another wave of dizziness comes over here, making her pause again as she breathes in deeply.

"Let me go talk to her," Donna says, placing one hand on Rose's shoulder. "You're not looking all that great again. Maybe you overdid it with the dancing a bit?"

Rose shakes her head, ignoring the sudden and persistent buzzing taking up a place in her head. "She's my sister; I have to go see if she's okay."

"Maybe she needs a friend more than a sister right now," Donna wisely points out. "Go sit down and give me five minutes to work my magic," she grins, pushing Rose gently in the direction of their table.

"All right," Rose concedes. "But if she needs me, please, come get me," she insists as she takes a couple of slow steps in the direction of the table.

"Will do," Donna nods, then heads up the staircase herself. Rose watches her until she disappears at the top, then slowly makes her way under the overhang to where Priya and Martha are discussing something medically related at the table.

"You all right?" one of them, she can't tell which, asks her as she drags out a chair and nearly collapses into it.

"Yeah," Rose says, hands reaching under the mask to rub at her temples again. "S'just a headache."

* * *

Donna jogs up the stairs and looks around. There are plenty of people milling around up here as well and doing their own party things – she thinks she even spots the Doctor in a crowd of people having a discussion about…something, she can't tell what. Knowing the Doctor, though, it's got to be something that's certifiably weird. Moving past that she spots Gemma a little further down, sitting curled up in the window ledge with the look of a very disgruntled thunderstorm on her face. Nodding once to herself she walks over to Gemma and hoists herself onto the ledge next to her. "All right, what did the jerk do this time?" she whispers to the young girl.

Gemma looks up at her and frowns, her small fists clenching in her purple skirts. "He was teasing me. Again. Doesn't he have anything better to do?"

"Maybe he likes you?" Donna suggests. It's not unheard of – she had even been on the receiving end of it a couple of times herself in primary school. Of course, she may have once punched a boy in the face who showed interest in her like that, so who was she to talk? She knows she's matured since those days.

The grimace of disgust at that statement is quite clear on Gemma's face. "Ugh. No. He's stupid. All boys are."

"Not all of them are. My granddad's a good guy," Donna points out, tapping Gemma on the knee.

"But he's old. That's different than being a stupid boy."

"Not always." She thinks for a moment then rolls her eyes. "Sometimes the older they are the more immature they can be." And she can think of a good example of that – it's not always true, but he's had his moments, that's for sure. "Hmm, some of the not so old ones as well." She looks down at Gemma again. "All right, most of them are stupid," she concedes, making her giggle. "But there are always some good ones out there."

"My dad was a good one too," Gemma says, her gaze turning back to the window. At that moment Donna can easily see the resemblance between the sisters – they both brooded in the same sort of staring into the distance fashion. "Luca's an idiot, though."

"Well, he just doesn't know what he's missing then," Donna says, which brings a grin out of Gemma.

"If he only knew all the things I've seen," she nods back. "I'm a better traveler than he is. Seen lots of places he hasn't."

"So what's all this then?"

For the second time that day Donna looks up to find the Doctor ambling over her way, and she smiles at him. "Just reassuring this one here that not all male members of the species are a total waste of space."

The Doctor stares at Gemma, who's giving him a puzzled look back. "Isn't she a little young to be having that sort of a crisis?"

"Kids these days," Donna just clucks. "Gemma, this here is the Doctor, one of the better males, even though he has his moments - and there are many of them - of stupidity."

"Oi!"

Donna ignores his interjection and continues on with the introductions. "Doctor, this is Gemma."

"Nice to meet you," the Doctor smiles. "Hold on a tic, I've seen you somewhere before." He whips out his glasses and leans in to get a closer look, making Gemma lean back against the windows. Finally the Doctor snaps his fingers. "That's it! The British Museum, in the Roman Statuary hall. You had wandered off from your tour and were talking about your sister."

Donna just sits back and watches, bemused. This is a funny turn of events, for sure.

"Uh-huh," Gemma agrees, her voice little more than a squeak for some reason Donna can't fathom.

"How is she doing?" the Doctor continues.

"F-fine," Gemma stutters, pushing herself back some more, so much so that she slips off the ledge and lands on her feet with a wobble. "I, uh, I gotta go," she says, the look in her eyes reminding Donna of a frightened rabbit. It's the last expression she'd ever expect this strong little girl to have, and she opens her mouth to ask what's going on.

Before Donna can get out a word, though, Gemma takes off, practically skidding into the stairwell that goes up to the top floor of the _palazzo_. The Doctor and Donna trade a very puzzled look – it's obvious that neither one knows what exactly inspired that sort of a reaction. "I'm gonna – " Donna starts, waving after Gemma.

"Yeah," the Doctor agrees, dark eyes staring after the metaphorical trails of dust Gemma left in her wake.

Donna takes off at a run, pulling on the door to the stairwell so hard she practically pulls it off the hinges. Luckily she doesn't have to go much further than that, as Gemma is halfway up the staircase. She's pacing back and forth, her hands clutched together and muttering "I'm in trouble, I am in so much trouble," over and over and over.

"Gemma, what's going on?" Donna asks, making Gemma gasp and look down at her. She bites her lip and shuts up, even though her hands are still folded tightly in front of her. Donna takes another step up. "Gemma, you can tell me," she prods further, wanting to know just what had made her react like that.

"That – that was the Doctor, right?"

"Right," Donna says, still not sure where this is going.

"THE Doctor, nine-hundred-year-old alien, Time Lord, travels around time and space in a big, blue box?" Gemma continues, eyes still worried.

Taken aback, Donna asks, "Did he tell you that the last time you met?" Because while lots of people have encountered the Doctor in their lives, not many of them know the actual truth. And why is one of those people a nine-year-old girl?

She shakes her head. "No. My sister…" Gemma trails off, eyes searching around the narrow stairwell, apparently not quite sure how to say this one. She gives up in due haste, however, and leaps down the few stairs to grab Donna's hand. "Come on, I gotta show you something," she says, pulling Donna up after her.

* * *

The Doctor just shakes his head as he walks back to the table. People have had many strange reactions to him over the years; Gemma's was rather mild in comparison. He's actually surprised that he remembers her, though. After 900-plus years of encountering people there's no way he can remember all of them, but he suspects the location of where they met may have something to do with it.

Before he can go any further something sharp and bright flashes through his head, making him squeeze his eyes shut and sending him to his knees on the cold marble floor. Oh God, his head! He can barely describe the feeling; it's like nothing he's ever felt before. It's strong and green, a bolt of cold fire going at the speed of light around his synapses. He grimaces, the cold fire morphing into a psychic call, as if another consciousness is trying to reach his.

Suddenly his eyes snap open, hands clenching on the floor, and through a haze of glistening green he can make out Martha's masked face staring at him. She's saying something but he doesn't know what. The image blinks away before he can figure it out, and the call fades into the background, leaving him gasping for breath on his hands and knees.

He can feel hands hauling him back to his feet. "What the hell was that?" he can hear Neil ask close to his ear. The Doctor glances over at Neil's disheveled appearance, the strap of his toga falling down his arm and his crown of laurels barely on his head anymore. His eyes are a bit clearer though, as if the sudden shock of his collapse managed to sober the young man up a bit.

"I don't know," the Doctor says, hands dashing back through his hair only to be stopped by the elastic of that damned mask. "It almost felt like…like some sort of psychic _howl_." Odd choice of words, that…

"Psychic," Neil repeats in a deadpan voice, the sceptism clear.

The Doctor shrugs weakly, his equilibrium still a bit off. "'There are more things in heaven and Earth…'"

"'Than are dreamt of in your philosophy', yes, I know," Neil completes. "But still – "

He's cut off by the sudden arrival of Martha, barreling straight at them, her dress fanning out in a train of silver behind her. "Doctor!" she yells, coming to a halt.

"What is it?"

"You know how I said before that the girl falling down the stairs had nothing to do with aliens?"

"Yes…"

"Yeah, I might have been a bit wrong about that."


	15. Chapter 13: If You Wanna Kiss The Sky

Heya 09 - the picture? Totally awesome. :) As for your theory, chapter 16 may offer some further insights. If you want, shoot me an e-mail at LolaRavenhill at yahoo dot com and I'll elaborate further. Much easier to do it that way than via the author's note. :)

**

* * *

Thirteen: If You Wanna Kiss the Sky…**

"**To touch is to heal**

**To hurt is to steal**

**If you wanna kiss the sky**

**Better learn how to kneel**

**(on your knees boy)"**

_**Mysterious Ways,**_** U2**

**

* * *

**

The green glaze creeping in at the edges of Rose's vision tells her that this may not be an ordinary headache. She blinks roughly, an attempt to keep the green at bay. She rests her head in her hands, exhaling against the tablecloth.

There's a rustling sound next to her, and she looks up to see Martha sliding into the chair next to hers. "How are you feeling?" she asks in a modulated voice that speaks of years of medical training.

"I'm fine," Rose says, her hands dropping to her lap as she lets her eyelids fall shut again. There's a buzzing in her head she just can't escape, and it keeps building and building. Part of her wants to liken it to sex (eleven years and a lifetime ago). Those feelings that just rise and fall and rise again, that make her blood crackle and sing, that can make her forget herself and lose control.

Her eyes snap open and they glom onto her hands, resting there in a pool of sheer black silk and glittering adornments, and her mouth falls open just slightly. Because just like during sex, she now sees that her writing is beginning to creep out, black and fresh, starting with the first, her name, and bleeding up to the next one, _La Serenissima_…

_La Serenissima_. Venice. Was that a sign? A message set down ages ago and only coming into relevance now, like a bad fortune teller's prediction that only makes sense after the fact?

Rose clenches her fists so tight that the skin loses its blood. It's painful but it (just barely) manages to bring the marks back under control. She glances up at Martha again. She can tell that the creeping attack of the writing has gone unnoticed, but only because her arms were hidden by tablecloth and shadows. The other woman's eyes haven't moved from her suddenly pale as a winter's night face.

"You're not fine," Martha says, grabbing onto Rose's bare shoulder. "You are as white as a sheet."

Priya and Lou come over to her other side, staring down at her with nearly identical expressions of concern on their very different faces. "Marion, you look like shit," Priya points out none too gently, knowing that sometimes blunt was the only way to get through to some people.

"I'll be all right," Rose insists softly. "This isn't the first time this has happened," she says, almost whispering.

"First time I'm seeing it," Priya fires back, "and as a doctor I'm ordering you to let us take you upstairs so we can check you out and find out what's wrong. Otherwise, we're taking you straight to hospital."

"No hospital," Rose says firmly, looking at the three of them in turn. Keeping her face steady she pushes the chair back with her legs and stands up, fully ready to go upstairs and lay down for a bit if it'll keep the peanut gallery from poking and prodding her further.

But then…

Then the pressure bursts wide open in her head, sending her crashing to the floor, her hands and knees meeting the stone with an audible _crack_.

* * *

Gemma bursts into the room she and Rose are sharing, with Donna following close on her heels. "Oh, where is it?" Gemma cries, darting over to one the bedside tables.

"Where's what?" Donna asks, still standing in the doorway. She feels a bit awkward, but there's that small tingle at the back of her neck that's practically screaming '**Something's happening!**'

"Oooh," Gemma moans, opening the drawers of the bedside table and scrabbling through them with no care for the contents.

"Gemma, what is going on?" Donna demands, making the girl pause in her frantic scurrying. She looks up at Donna, and the beginnings of tears are in her eyes.

"See, my sister, she used to know the Doctor ages ago. They were good…well, they knew each other really, really well," she says, hands resting on the edge of the drawer. She pauses, as if trying to find the right words to explain the situation. "They lost track of each other, though," she continues, leaping over the bed to get to the other bedside table and pawing through the mess on top of it. "Anyway, this all happened before I was born, I just heard the stories."

"Was your sister a fetus then when she met the Doctor – she can't be more than twenty," Donna says, trying to keep the slightly sour tones of doubt out of her voice.

"Oh, don't let her fool you," Gemma replies, rolling off the bed and scanning the room rapidly. "She's _old_. She's at least thirty. But she's been looking for him for ages and ages. And if he's here now, I gotta tell her! Ah!" She gasps, and bolts for the dresser. Her hand lands on a tangled chain, and she picks it up and practically tosses it to Donna in her excitement.

Donna looks at the little bundle in her hand, flexing her fingers so that the chain pools in her palm. Then she picks up the object in the centre of the mass, what looks like a boring old house key. But she knows better. Dropping the key back she reaches down the front of her dress and pulls out an identical chain and key.

(Always be prepared, you know, especially in a dress without pockets – keep your TARDIS key with you at all times.)

There's no visible reaction between the two keys, but there is a sudden vibration pounding through her palms that drives home the fact that neither of these are ordinary keys. Which means that the story, to some degree, is true. "Okay," she says, placing the other key carefully back on the dresser. "Let's round everyone up and find out what's really going on."

* * *

"Oh, Christ!" Martha yelps, dropping to the floor a second afterwards. Marion is there on her hands and knees, her fingers looking as if they're trying to burrow into the stone below them. Her head is dropped forward, surrounded by an odd combination of feathers and curls, obscuring her eyes. Martha's hands react instinctively, going to the side of Marion's head and lifting her face upwards. Her mouth drops, breath escaping with a little shudder when she sees just what she has revealed.

Framed by the gold-painted plaster of the mask, Martha sees that the woman's eyes are no longer their normal brown, but are instead shining a light aqua green obscuring cornea, iris, and pupil. It hardly needs to be said that this is not normal.

The unfocused eyes move to Martha's, suddenly gaining focus even through the green. "Martha Jones," Marion says in a low and steady voice. "Martha Jones…you're a hero. This world lost an entire year but you…you managed to save it."

Martha's hands seem to lose half of their grip on her head, letting it fall forward again, even though she can still feel Marion's hair against her fingers. 'There is no way she could have known that,' Martha thinks, frozen in place. Only those at the very centre of the storm on the Valiant had any clue about the year that never was, and the faces of all the participants had been burned indelibly into her memory. This one, Marion McCrimmon, certainly wasn't one of them.

And now, she knows, there's only one person who could make any sort of sense out of this one. The right kind of Doctor, as Jack mentioned to her once upon a time.

She looks over at Priya and Lou, who have just crouched down next to her as well. "Please tell me you saw that," Martha pleads desperately.

"Her eyes were just glowing," Lou whispers, barely audible over the noise of the crowd that somehow hasn't noticed what's going on.

(Just one more drunkard, the crowd thinks. Typical of this sort of party. If they only knew what was happening maybe they'd have paid more attention. But then, some moments were meant to be private – or just better with two.)

"I think it's safe to say that is not normal," Priya says, one hand going to Marion's neck to take her pulse, considerably less freaked out than Lou is.

"I've got a friend who can help," Martha says, smoothing a hand over Marion's arched back. "He's rather an expert in things like this."

"Things like this?" Lou cries, panic evident in her voice as she wraps an arm around Marion's waist, but who's supporting who she isn't sure.

"Yeah," Martha says, pushing herself to her feet. "I think Donna said he was on the next floor up. S'where she last saw him when she went hunting for the loo." She stares around the room, looking in despair at the dance floor with its mish-mash of people blocking the way to the main staircase.

Lou removes one hand from Marion's back and points to the left, arm stretched parallel to the wall. "Service stairway is right there. Less crowded, too."

"Right," Martha nods. "I'll be right back with help." She runs along the clear path by the wall, wanting to find the Doctor as fast as possible.

* * *

With an internal click everything that's going on within Rose's body seems to shut off, leaving her back in her normal state. "Oh!" she gasps, dropping to the floor with an ungraceful thump. Barely a second after that she feels hands pulling her back up to a sitting position.

"Mar, you okay?" Priya asks, hands automatically going to her head and pulling it upwards.

"Yeah, I'm fine," she replies, her mantra for the night.

"Fine? That was _fine?_" Lou's hysterical voice breaks in. "Your eyes were glowing!"

Bugger. All right, think fast, Rose. The quicker you explain your way out of this one the better.

"They were probably just glassy," she says, offering up what she hopes is a reasonable explanation.

"Glowing green is a bit different than just glassy," Priya points out, lips compressed into a thin line.

Dammit.

"Look, don't worry," Priya continues, oblivious to Rose's frustration. "Martha's got a friend, she said, who's a bit of an expert in things like this."

"Shit!" Rose hisses, then shakes off the concerned hands of everyone. "I don't need any help; I'm fine." With her flat sandals skittering on the stones of the courtyard, she scrambles to her feet. "She went upstairs, didn't she?" Rose asks after a rapid glance around the floor.

"Yeah, but – "

Rose doesn't hear the response, just takes off for the same staircase Martha had darted up only minutes before.

Lou and Priya trade a look and then, as one, they leap to their feet as well and take off after their friend.

* * *

"What?" the Doctor repeats, voice as flat and dry as crisp-bread.

"The same girl collapsed again," Martha continues, sucking in a few mouthfuls of air to ease the burning in her lungs. "Only this time, her eyes started glowing green."

"Glowing green," Neil repeats in the same dry tone as the Doctor. "I think I've seen this movie before."

"This isn't a movie!" Martha snaps back, worry straining the lines of her face. "There was something else," she continues, turning back to the Doctor. "She knew about the Valiant. I don't know how, but she did. When her eyes were glowing, she told me that this world had lost a year."

'That howl,' the Doctor's mind immediately leaps to. The one that rang through his mind and sent him crashing straight to his knees. "Could have been some sort of psychic being," he theorizes, pulling off his glasses (they looked a bit silly over the mask anyway). "It could be using this girl as some sort of conduit to make contact? I've seen things like that before." He shrugs. "That's one theory, at least. Could be anything."

Martha reaches out and tugs at his tuxedo sleeve. "So you'll come take a look?"

"Yeah, all right," he agrees. "I always like a good mystery."

"Don't need to tell me twice," Martha grins.

Neil's laurels slip forward again as he leans into the conversation. "If someone would care to elaborate, I'm lost."

The Doctor makes a face at Neil. "You wouldn't understand. It's complicated, scientific…stuff." He begins to follow Martha toward the service stairwell, but rolls his eyes as the sound of Neil's sandaled footsteps trail after them. "No," the Doctor insists, using his skinny frame to block the doorway. "This could be dangerous, and you have no idea what you're doing."

"I want to help, isn't that enough?"

Martha looks up at Neil, a mirror image of the Doctor's look. "Neil, he's right. You've no idea what's going on, and you're more likely to get hurt instead of help."

"Let's go." The Doctor leads Martha down the stairs. And Neil still follows. "All right, obviously you aren't listening," the Doctor groans, turning as he walks. It's a complicated maneuver, a body twisted so that it's walking sideways down the stairs with hands braced on the banister, all so that he can shoot another glare at the man following him. "Neil, you're pissed and a danger to yourself."

With his head turned the Doctor misses the fact that there are other people heading his way. In his defense, neither Martha nor Neil notices the small crowd either.

His back hits another body with a mild impact; it's sudden and jarring but not damaging. "Sorry," he hastily apologizes, spinning fully on the stairs so that he's backwards now.

The person he's walked into twists as well, no doubt to offer a similar apology. The lips under the other person's mask begin to move, but then…

Then they both freeze, there in the middle of the staircase, and the Doctor knows his mouth is starting to gape open, but he gathers up the last shreds of his control and holds himself together.

Now this was interesting.

* * *

"Mari!"

"Marion, stop this!" Priya cries over the din of oblivious partygoers. "Come sit down, please! You're not well!"

"I'm fine!" Rose yells back, a manic grin not unlike a certain alien's spreading across her face. She pauses by the door to the service stairwell, hand on the latch, and turns to face them. "Really," she pants, "it's okay."

If it's something involving the TARDIS, how can it not be okay? All she's got to do now is find Martha, somehow convince her it was all a mistake involving a wonky pair of coloured contacts (which, while unlikely to work, was all she had at the moment), and then continue on with her own investigation. The best plan? No, not by far – Martha seems a bit too wise really to buy into it, but it was short notice. The other option is running away, but she has no desire to do that to her friends. Not now, after everything they've done for her. With a snap of her wrist she throws the door open and hurtles up the stairway.

Lou and Priya are mere steps behind her, perpetually persistent. "We don't have any idea what's going on," Priya calls out, struggling a bit to move because of her heavy and ornate costume.

"Seriously, it's okay!" Rose fires back yet again, twisting to look down at them as she continues the climb up the stairs. "I think this has happened before," she lets slip. "Maybe – "

Maybe it's the crowd coming the other way on the stairs, maybe it's the sudden revelation but whatever it is Priya and Lou pause in their tracks. Rose doesn't notice and keeps going, twisting forward again to see the stairs she's trying to climb. In mid-twist she bumps right up against someone, throwing her a bit off balance. She stumbles up to the next step, managing to keep her feet.

The hasty "sorry" tossed off behind her finally makes her stop and she turns back, ready to return the sentiment. Jackie would have been horribly disappointed in her if she forgot her manners, especially when it's someone who's not involved in the mess.

But then she looks, really looks at the person who walked into her, and the world seems to begin spinning beneath her feet once more.

Of course. What was it that was said about the best laid plans?

Rose resists the urge to let a smile spread across her face. Her eyes flick over him. He looks good but those eyes, half hidden by the black satin mask, speak of a lot of hardships in the intervening years. It's a bit frightening that even after all of these years apart she can still read him like a beloved book.

It seems like everyone on the stairway is frozen in place, following their leads. Rose looks down at her girls, clustered on the step below the Doctor. She looks over her shoulder at the two behind her, recognizing Martha and Neil. Good, that'll make it easier.

"Get out."

At first Rose thinks the Doctor is talking to her, but then she sees his eyes glare past her, and then down at the two behind him. No one moves, however. They all keep their places in the unfolding scene.

"I said get out, all of you!" the Doctor yells, not removing his eyes from Rose's face. A chorus of outraged squawks rises up.

"But – "

"What?"

"Are you kidding me?"

Rose looks down at Priya and Lou's stunned and slightly angry faces, and smiles at them. "Seriously, it's okay," she reassures them once more. "Just let us talk in private for a little bit."

"Are you so sure that's a good idea?" Martha says slowly, no doubt seeing the stern and pale expression on the Doctor's face. Rose can see it as well, and she feels a ball of nerves start to coil somewhere in her stomach.

The Doctor's hand slides into his suit jacket and pulls out the sonic screwdriver. "I'm sure," he says slowly.

"Go on," Rose says, motioning with her head toward the top of the stairway. "I'll find you upstairs in a little bit."

Finally, Lou and Priya shuffle past the Doctor and her. Lou's hand drops onto Rose's shoulder as she passes, giving it a tight squeeze. Rose nods back and smiles at her, trying to convey that for once everything really is just as it should be.

And then, _finally_, the Doctor and Rose are alone – together.


	16. Chapter 14: Last Chance on the Stairway

**Fourteen: Last Chance on the Stairway**

**And sometimes I'm caught in a landslide  
My beat's so in time **

_**can you look at me**_**  
I'm out of reach I'll talk if it feels right  
So nervous to say, **

_**tell me can't you see  
**_**If you want I'll fall out forever  
I can't say no more... **

_**babe dance with me  
**_**And please don't say leave till later  
I've had my last chance on the stairway.**

_** - Last Chance on the Stairway**_**, Duran Duran**

**

* * *

**

Of all of the places Rose thought she would finally see the Doctor again, a service stairway between two floors at a party was the last place on the list. Really, it hadn't even made the list at all. Whoever had done the decorations for the gala had tried to hide its ordinariness, with sheer draperies hung over the arches in the wall to her right, but all they did was block the view of all the workers rushing back and forth from the ground and first floors from the revelers below.

This is all in the back of her head, however, thoughts flittering by while she's focused on something else. Her eyes never leave the Doctor, still standing frozen a few steps below her. She's not quite sure what to say – she's thought about this moment often in her head, but it usually consists of her hugging him so hard until they both fall over, and she doesn't usually make it far past that. Her mouth opens, trying to say something, anything, even 'hello' would suffice, but her throat is so tight that not even a squeak comes out. 'Great,' Rose thinks, 'I cross time and space to get to this moment, and I get stage fright.' So she just smiles a bit, letting the spark in her eyes do the talking.

"You know, the universe is not usually a kind place in my experience," the Doctor says, sonic screwdriver still clutched in his hand. "So what am I supposed to think when something that I want shows up out of the blue without any provocation or warning?"

(The signs were there, though, words on a page echoing throughout time and space. He knows this. He just has to be _sure_. Because he wants to believe that it's her standing a mere few feet away from him, he really, really does. But what are the chances of that?)

"That you're lucky?" Rose shrugs, still smiling. "You always were, as far as I remember."

"Luck, or a very well crafted plot to get my attention, and not in a good way." He moves backwards a step, going down just a little further.

Rose's mouth tightens imperceptibly. 'All of time and space to get to this moment and he doesn't believe me. Bloody stupid Sod's law in action.' She should have seen something like this coming, she really should have, but the possibility had never even come to mind. So she's not sure if she's mad at him for doubting her or herself because she had never considered this outcome to her story. But that doesn't mean that this is the end, does it?

She takes a deep breath, letting the air fill her lungs. 'One last chance,' she thinks. 'One last chance to make this work. Come on, you can figure it out. You haven't come all this way just to be knocked back by doubt. Come on, come on, come on. You've already done the impossible part, this should be a piece of cake compared to that.'

"Okay, fine," she says, crossing her arms over her chest. "If you don't believe that it's really me, that I'm really Rose Tyler, you can walk out that door down there and I'll never bother you again."

'Oh, please, please,' she thinks, 'let this work.'

With his mouth pressed into a firm line he spins on his heel and almost reaches the bottom step. But then he stops, and Rose can see his hand clenching around the sonic screwdriver.

(Sometimes he really is one daft alien. What was it that he was thinking earlier in the evening, feeling the urge to fall all over again as he looked out over the balcony? There were times in his long life where he knows he has to take that chance. Maybe this is another one of them…)

He glances back at her over his shoulder. "There's a chance I might be overreacting. Just a bit."

Rose raises her hand up and pinches her index finger and thumb together. "Little bit."

Now there's a glint in his eyes, a hint of mischief that speaks to a sudden change in attitude. "Prove it," he says, buzzing the sonic screwdriver at the door and making the lock click into place.

She glances toward the ceiling, trying to come up with the perfect story to tell him. And then it hits her. It's so simple, which is what makes it perfect. "The first time we ever met, the absolute first time when you had a different face, you grabbed my hand and you said one word." She raises up her left arm, palm forward, fingers waggling just a bit, and lets the word on her wrist begin to bleed into existence. "Run."

This time a true smile spreads across his face and he runs up the stairs, taking them two at a time. Before Rose can take a breath she's wrapped in his arms. Finally, finally, _finally._ She squeezes him tight around his middle, feeling the familiar planes of muscle and bone beneath her palms. The sonic screwdriver is pressing uncomfortably against her spine, and she knows the feathers of her mask are probably tickling the Doctor's chin, but she doesn't care, not one damn bit. "It's so good to see you," she sighs into his tuxedo jacket.

"You, too," he replies into her hair.

Even though she doesn't want to let him go, Rose knows that her precarious position perched on the edge of the stair in flat sandals that have no grip isn't the best for standing still for any length of time. Reluctantly, she untangles herself from him and sits down on the step instead, motioning for him to follow with her head. The Doctor sits down a couple of steps below her, back leaning on the wall below the railing. "You – how – w-what?" he eventually stutters, looking up at her with a look she can't quite decipher because of that damn mask.

"I know!" she giggles, leaning her head in her hands. "All of the times I've dreamt of this I never imagined I'd be at a loss for words!"

"It's true," the Doctor muses, resting his wrists on his bony knees. "I've got a gob, and certainly can find the right words in any of five billion languages to fit the situation, but right now…" He trails off, shaking his head and giving her a bemused look. He reaches up and grabs Rose's left hand, stroking the palm of it with his thumb. She squeezes it back. "How long has it been?" he asks her.

She thinks for a moment, counting back on mental fingers. When you're going from one universe to another, going by sheer calendar dates doesn't work. "'Bout eleven years," she eventually concludes. "You didn't regenerate," Rose continues. "That's always good."

"I'm rather fond of this face," he says, stroking his chin with his free hand. "Don't want to give it up without a fight."

"You're not the only one," Rose agrees with a nod.

"How did you get here?" he blurts out, looking back up at her.

"It's amazing where you can get when you're good friends with the hosts' granddaughter," she says, tugging on a lock of hair that's slipping out of her up-do. "Got a room upstairs and everything."

"Rose."

She pauses, the words dying on her tongue. She looks down at him then, her eyes filled with puzzlement and wonder. "You mean you don't know?" she asks, squeezing his hand tighter. The Doctor just shakes his head, his thumb stroking the ink marks on the back of her hand now. "It was you," Rose says, stretching out her legs so that they're practically draped over his knees. Quickly she yanks the sari upwards so that her legs are bare. Then the ink marks flourish into life, covering her legs in the dark writing, as fresh as if they'd just been applied earlier in the day. "So many of these words you put here, the ones you couldn't really decide why you were writing them out, I translated them from what you'd taught me. It took a while but I finally got it. They're like a map, or a guidebook, telling just what I had to do to get back here. And it worked."

Rather suddenly the Doctor whips his mask off, twisting to face her as her legs fall to his side. "Rose, that's impossible," he says, big brown eyes wide and staring up at her. "That's practically beyond the realms of science, what you're describing."

"Impossible or not, that's what happened!" Rose cries out, dropping his hand and pulling her own mask off. The feathers and elastic cord get tangled in her hair, but she eventually gets rid of it, tossing it on the steps. Her hands go to his face and pull it up, bringing his eyes back to hers. "Maybe the point of it is that we can't define the science behind it. Maybe it's _not_ the science that's important but the fact that we're here, right now. "

There's a rattle from the door handle below them, followed by a rapid-fire pounding on the door. Neither of them notice, too absorbed in each other. The Doctor looks down at Rose's legs and glides a hand up one of them, watching as the writing ripples beneath his touch. "Is it so bad that I want to understand exactly how I – how _we _did it?" he eventually asks, looking up at her again.

She rests her forehead against his and they both close their eyes, focusing on the touch of skin against skin. "No," she whispers. "I can tell you all of the steps I went through, all of the places I went in order to get the pieces I needed to get back. But I don't have the foggiest clue as to why those words." Rose can feel his eyes on her face and she opens her own to find him staring at her. "I chose to look at it as a very precious gift. Obviously, it worked," she giggles, breaking the somber mood.

"That it did," the Doctor agrees with a grin.

The door handle rattles again, followed by indecipherable shouting. "You know, it's occurred to me that this may not be the best place for this sort of conversation," the Doctor says with a rather conspiratorial look on his face.

Rose glances behind her at the door at the top of the stairs. "Everyone else is up there. We go upstairs, we're going to have a lot of explaining to do," she sighs. "I'd rather keep you to myself, at least for the immediate future."

"There's enough people downstairs that we could probably slip unnoticed through the crowd and then out the back door," the Doctor muses, reaching for his sonic screwdriver once more. "Come on," he says, scrambling to his feet and pulling Rose with him. They hurry down the stairs and out the door to the ground floor, only to be stopped by the head waiter and the party planner.

"What the hell's going on up there?" the planner blurts out, glaring at the two of them. "My staff has been trying to get into that corridor for the past five minutes. The waiters have had to go up and down the main staircase and have already lost three trays of drinks, one of which ended up on the bloody Duchess of Luxembourg!"

"Um, you don't want to know," the Doctor stammers, his free hand scratching at the nape of his neck.

"Seriously," Rose agrees, smiling with enough teeth to make a shark envious. "I think it may have had something to do with aliens."

"Oh, give me strength," the planner groans, throwing his hands up in the air. Rose and the Doctor use that moment to make their escape, weaving hand-in-hand through the crowd until they slip off into the night.

* * *

"Where the hell is everyone?" Donna grouses as she stands in the middle of the dance floor, hand on one hip. She and Gemma had set out to find everyone, but no luck yet. Of course, the party is really rollicking by this point, the dance floor seething with bodies twisting and turning every which way. Gemma clings onto Donna's hand as she stands on her tip-toes, trying to see through the crowd. Her wings are buffeted about, but she really doesn't care either.

"I can't see anything! Ow!" Gemma yelps as her slippered foot is trod on by a passing android and glares after it.

Finally, Donna manages to spot the table in the corner where they had been taking up residence for most of the night. It's totally empty now, though, with chairs pushed back at odd angles, and half-full glasses abandoned on the surface. One of the glasses has fallen over and a stream of champagne is trickling over the tablecloth and onto the floor. So where did they go? "Let's try upstairs," Donna shouts over the crowd. "We'll be able to see the whole floor from up there." She pulls Gemma along, dodging the bodies until they make it to the service stairwell. Donna pulls at the handle, but it's locked and doesn't budge. She makes a face at the handle, idly thinking that maybe sheer will could get it to open. There's no time to waste though. "Come on," she sighs, pulling Gemma back into the crowd. Eventually they make it over to the other side, and practically tumble up the main staircase.

"Sorry, mate!" Gemma calls out as she crashes into a waiter, sending a shower of canapés over the crowd on the stairwell.

It's a little less crowded on the upper floor, and the two pause briefly to take in some much needed air. "Okay, where could they be?" Donna asks.

"I dunno," Gemma pants, scrubbing a hand across her forehead and leaving a wild smear of blue glitter behind.

They make their way around the balcony, stopping every few seconds to peer over the railings and hope that they could get a glimpse of their crowd. From this height, however, the chaos down below is even more insane. They'd be lucky to find an elephant in there, let alone a few small people. But rather suddenly, a sound cuts its way through the bustle. From around the corner, where the balcony stops and merges into a solid corridor, sharp voices rise up, and finally Donna can hear someone she recognizes in it. "Come on," she says again, tugging Gemma behind her as they rush towards the noise.

As soon as they turn the corner into the hallway, they can both see the familiar crowd standing there. It takes a few seconds to for Donna to realize, however, that no one's smiling. They're not paying attention to her either, so it obviously wasn't something that she'd done.

"Uh, no," Louise nearly growls, standing practically in Martha's face. "I don't have the slightest idea what's going on! Contrary to what you think I'm not exactly privy to everything that went on in her life!"

Martha groans and squeezes her eyes shut, her hands raised in exasperation. "Look, all I'm asking is if she ever mentioned anything like this at all – "

"And for the fifth time, _no, she hasn't_."

Neil and Priya have deemed it wise to stay out of the way and let the other two battle whatever it is out, so Donna sidles up to Priya. "What's going on?" she whispers, making the other girl practically jump out of her ornate dress.

"Christ, don't do that to me!" she gasps. "You missed all the excitement," Priya mutters.

"Doesn't look like it." Donna glances over at the other two women, still arguing about something she's got no idea about.

"You should have been here about five minutes ago. Oi!" Priya hollers, marking Lou and Martha quiet down and look her way. She jerks a thumb towards Donna. "Explain to her. Now."

"Is everything all right?" Gemma pipes up, chewing on one thumbnail. It wasn't quite sucking her thumb, but the movement makes Donna wonder if she had done it as a baby.

"I think so," Lou says. "But I don't even know what's going on."

"Nor do I," Martha adds, shaking her head.

"Then just tell us what happened," Donna sighs, rolling her eyes.

"Turns out the Doctor knows their friend Marion from a while back, and now they've gone and locked themselves in the stairwell." Martha finishes with a shrug, as if not knowing what else to add to that simple statement.

"Oh, okay." It's really not all that surprising, given what Gemma had shown her earlier. She glances back at the girl, who's standing there with her lips pressed tightly together and her hands clenched. Not a happy look on her face then, either.

(Gemma's really trying very hard not to giggle. The same sort of giggle that you do when you finally begin to see the starts of that happy ending playing out right before your eyes.)

"Well, it can't be all that surprising," Donna continues. "Given his age and how much he travels about, half the population of the Earth can probably boast running into him at one time or another."

"You didn't see his face now, though," Martha fires back with an arched eyebrow.

"The look on Marion's face didn't help either," Lou mutters, scuffing her feet against the marble floor a few times.

"Okay, then what exactly are you arguing about?" Donna puts in again, really lost this time. "They know each other. Big deal. In fact, Gemma was just saying…" She turns to face Gemma, but then stops dead. The metaphorical spark is going off in her head, dragging up one teeny tiny little memory from the near past. She glances over at the door to the stairway, remembering what had happened on there earlier in the day. Just one little thing…She begins to squint then, and her arms cross over her chest. "Hold it," she says, her head whipping back around to face Gemma. "When your sister fell down the stairs before." Gemma freezes, the grip of her hands tightening. "When she fell down, you didn't call her Marion. You called her Rose."

"What?" Martha practically yelps.

"Um…" Gemma says, eyes darting to look at everything but the people in front of her.

"Well, technically that is her real name," Lou says slowly, taking in the looks on Donna and Martha's faces. "She hates using it though."

"Says it sounds too old fashioned," Priya chimes in. "Why? Is that important?"

"Oh, yeah." This time, it's Donna who's resisting the urge to smile. She always was a sucker for a good happy ending. Although it would probably be better for her not to show any sort of glee until after she found out exactly what was going on. "Come on," she says, clapping a hand on Gemma's shoulder. "We've got to have a little talk."

T.B.C…


	17. Chapter15: Lift Me Up Out Of These Blues

Warning: This is the part where the rating goes up to R - not very graphic, but still not something that should probably be read at work or in front of impressionable kids. You can skip it if you choose though, you won't really miss anything...

**Fifteen: Love Lift Me Up Out of These Blues**

**Love, lift me up out of these blues**  
**Won't you tell me something true**  
**I believe in you**

**A mole, living in a hole**  
**Digging up my soul now going down, excavation**  
**I and I in the sky**  
**You make me feel like I can fly so high, elevation**

**_Elevation_, U2**

* * *

It doesn't take long for the Doctor and Rose to realize that they may have become slightly lost while running through the hazy streets. The narrow alleys and passageways of Venice are easy to get lost in on a good day, but it's an even likelier occurrence when the body is filled with the giddy rush of joy and you're not paying attention to anything but the hand that's finally holding yours after so long apart.

Eventually, however, they dart down an alleyway that dead-ends at a wrought iron railing that keeps them from falling into a small canal. Rose glances out over the railing and down at the sluggish stream of water. There are a few dinghies tied up beside doors, but aside from that things are silent. "I think we're lost," she says, rubbing her arms. It's not quite warm, and her sari isn't exactly the best thing to keep the chill away. Suddenly a heavier fabric slips over her shoulders – the Doctor's tuxedo jacket, still a bit warm from their run and smelling faintly of him. She grips the lapels and sniffs quietly, taking the scent of him inside her.

"Nah, we're not lost," the Doctor replies, stepping back from her and looking up at the two buildings that they are crammed between. "We're still in Venice."

She shoots him a stern look, resisting the urge to smile. Some things, no matter how long it's been, never change. Then again, some things do. Their eyes meet for a brief moment and they do share a grin, but then Rose shakes her head. "I don't know what to say. Again," she mutters, a nervous laugh slipping out of her mouth.

The Doctor nods and leans against the wall opposite her. "How about starting with how you got here? 'Cause I have to admit to a very healthy amount of curiosity as to how you accomplished that."

"I told you," she shrugs. "You gave me the key." Rose gestures at her body.

"But what method did you use?" he persists. "I know of quite a few ways to get through universes, but all of them are impossible without the Time Lords. And I know for damn sure that none of them were in that other universe."

Rose hoists herself onto a ledge built into the wall, careful not to rip the fabric of her outfit. Her legs dangle over the edge, swinging about. "It was a key, literally. I found it on a planet – "

"How'd you get off Earth?"

(That's his Rose, always finding a way to do things that should be impossible, including making her way out into an unfamiliar universe.)

She giggles and pulls her mask off, tossing it down on the ledge next to her. "Hitched a ride with a lovely couple that had crash landed and caught Torchwood's attention. Then I told everyone I had taken my sister to Blackpool for the weekend."

"So Jackie had the baby then?" he asks.

"Yeah," Rose nods. "'Course, the baby's almost ten now. Gemma. You might have seen her running around at the party – she's the one with the fairy wings on her back."

(The Doctor pushes down the panic when he realizes that the girl who he had run into in the British Museum and Rose's sister are one and the same. Hmm. He and Gemma would probably have to have a little talk before deciding how to tell Rose this one…)

"Yeah, I think I saw her talking to Donna." His brow wrinkles, another thought striking him. "You brought your sister with you when you came back? I thought she would have stayed with your mother?"

Rose licks her lips and stares out at the canal. "There was a car accident…" she trailed off, and the Doctor nodded. They'll come back to that later. This is meant to be a happy night.

"Is Blackpool the same over there as it is here?" the Doctor asks, quickly changing the subject for the moment.

"Think so. Not sure though, we never actually went. I just looked it up online." Rose shakes her head, attempting to loosen up some of her hair. "Anyway, getting back to the point. The key was stashed on the planet we went to. By some stroke of luck they let me take it back to Earth." Her eyes grow even more distant, and the Doctor can't fathom what she's seeing at the moment. "And then I unlocked the sky and found myself back here in this universe. That was," she exhales roughly, "about two, two and a half years ago. I think."

The Doctor shakes his head, marveling. "You've been here all this time and our paths never managed to cross…"

Rose looks back at him, and this time her face is almost apologetic. "I had to stop for a while. Gemma needed a break from the travelling. I was a horrible sister, pulling her all over the planet and never realizing that she needed a place to return to." She smirks now, thinking back over some of the things that had been said over the past few days. "Of course, now she says she wants to start travelling again, although I can't tell if it's because she wants to get out of school."

The Doctor crosses his arms over his chest, grinning. "Well, it's been proven that people learn better from experiencing things than just reading about them in books, even though the power of books should never be underestimated."

"Funny, that's exactly the excuse Gemma gave. Should I be worried that your brain has reverted to that of a ten year old's?"

He rolls his eyes. "It's been a long few years, but I haven't degenerated that much."

"What happened?" Rose asks. She can tell that _things happened_, given that he looks like he's currently carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. Whether he's forthcoming about the events is a different matter.

The Doctor shrugs. It's his turn to stare out over the canal, and he can feel the chill from the stone wall seeping in through his dress shirt. "You know how it goes," he eventually says. "Had to save the Earth a bit from a few old friends of mine. Picked up Martha and Donna. Met Agatha Christie. Saw the end of the universe. Ran into the Ood again." He stops speaking and turns back to her.

Rose resists the urge to grit her teeth. She can tell that he's being evasive now, but she's confident she'll drag it out of him eventually. Alien or not, she knows he'll need to get everything out at some point, and she has every intention of being there when he does. It's just a matter of making the proper arrangements first…

"Come with me," he says, straightening up off the wall and shoving his hands into his trouser pockets.

Dammit, she needs a few more minutes of trying to collect her thoughts before breaching this subject. Instead, Rose bites her lip and plunges forward. "And what about Gemma?"

The Doctor shrugs again and smiles a bit. "Bring her. Of course."

Rose grabs onto the ledge, curling her fingers around it. "I can't. Not yet."

"What?"

For a moment, her heart breaks at the look on his face. "Let me explain," she rushes, wanting to do anything to make him not look like that. "I need a month, just one month, before we can take off with you again. I need to set things up for Gemma on Earth so that if she decides to return someday, she won't have to build a record from scratch. She's…not lived the life we have, and she's so young still. I have to give her that option, you know? And then once that's set?" Rose smiles widely, face shining in the dark night. "Try and stop us."

The Doctor nods, the color coming back into his cheeks a bit. He smiles, taking another step closer. "You're a good big sister, taking care of her like that. And I can wait a month, especially for a cause like that."

(It's been ages since there's been any sort of a child on the TARDIS too. He gets the feeling that he's going to have to prepare her for this one.)

Rose smirks at him. "Knowing you, you'll skip ahead anyway."

"Oi, I can be patient if I need to be." He winks. "Even after nine-hundred years I'm still learning things. Evolution, you know. We change to move to the next stage of life. Like developing a set of gills for when your planet goes completely underwater."

(He knows that he is not the same man that he used to be. As much as he would like to recapture the innocence of old, before they were parted, the Doctor knows they won't be able to. However, that doesn't mean that what they have changed into is at all bad.)

"Gills? Seriously?"

The Doctor moves close enough to her now that he stands right in between her legs. Then Rose notes the look that's on the Doctor's face. There's an intent there that wasn't present a few seconds ago. Her stomach plunges, as if it's suddenly filled with a mass of squirming hummingbirds. She hasn't seen that sort of look directed towards her in years, but her body recognizes it fully and starts to tingle She reaches out and strokes a thumb across his sharp cheekbone, watching as he blinks slowly in response. His hands go around her neck, fingers cradling the back of her head. A moment that feels like it could be eons passes, and then they lean in at the same time, mouths coming together, and Rose can feel time rushing through her head once more.

(This is why he hasn't kissed her until now. He knows that if – when he kissed her again, nothing in any universe was going to be able to stop him.)

The first touches are gentle, delicate lips brushing against each other quietly. It's so obvious that neither one of them has been touched like this in so long. It's a relief to meet again, a shining beam of moonlight breaking through on a cloud-filled night.

And then, then things change. That seems to be the theme for the night. But change is good.

The Doctor's hands slide down to Rose's shoulders and pull her in close. Their bodies press together so tightly that barely a breath can get in between them. The Doctor's jacket is pushed off her shoulders, taking the outer part of her sari with it. The sheer fabric puddles around her waist and leaves her upper half covered by the skimpy halter top. His hands glide over her midsection, and she shivers. She's not sure if it's the wind making her react like that. When his finger tips begin to make circles on the underside of her breasts through the top, it's definitely not the wind causing the shivers.

She tugs his shirt out of his trousers and strokes the skin of his lower back, making his hips jerk forward into hers. Her hands continue upwards, skin cool from the night air. They then decide to dance around his waistband, dipping under here and there, teasing him oh so carefully.

The Doctor pulls back and stares down at her, eyes wide and practically glowing. Rose can see all too clearly what he's thinking. They've waited far, far too long to get to this point, so why hesitate any longer? And she knows she's ready. So she nods.

With quick and deft movements the Doctor's trousers are undone and her skirt is hiked out of the way. As soon as everything's clear he slams himself inside her. Her legs clutch around his waist, and her eyelids fall shut at the sensation. "You okay?" he whispers. Rose nods, pressing a kiss to the skin behind his ear. He thrusts again, and she exhales roughly into his neck.

There's something so different about this experience when with a Time Lord, Rose had discovered. Time doesn't quite make sense like it does during a calm moment. It feels fast and slow all at once, and somewhere in the back of her head it's like she's looking into a field of stars and if she doesn't hold on she's going to fall head first into the field and be submerged. She has missed this desperately, so now she leans in and nips at his neck, reveling in the rediscovered feeling.

His hand glides up her bare thigh, and she smiles as she feels the writing swirl to the surface. So she throws her head back and lets all of them come out. Nothing's hidden, not now.

They move together, faster and faster, taking that lost time and turning it into something different, something new. If they were close before then it's nothing like they are now, bodies and minds and spirits all working towards once singular goal.

When the world finally shatters into splinters of gold and silver for him, the Doctor clutches her tightly around her waist, keeping her as close as possible. And Rose can swear that she almost howls at the sky as her blood races through her system, setting every single nerve ending alight with sparks.

"Oh my god," she pants against his ear, the first words she's said since they started.

"That…" The Doctor fumbles for words, fishing around for exactly the right thing to say at this moment. (His brain doesn't seem to be working as it should be. Small wonder why.) "Yeah."

Rose giggles, but a scuffling at the entrance of the alleyway makes her quiet down fast. Finally it occurs to her that she and the Doctor just shagged against the wall of a rather dingy alley, where anyone walking or boating by probably got a hell of a show. "Um, we should probably…"

"Yeah," he nods, pulling back with a slight wince. They begin to get themselves back together, doing up trousers and smoothing out skirts. As Rose is fussing with the length of decorated fabric, the beam of a torch darts down the alley. The Doctor pauses in doing up his jacket, looks up, and groans. "Not them again."

The Doctor goes off to deal with the _carabinieri_ as Rose attempts to get her sari in some sort of order. It's nowhere near as nicely done as when Priya had dressed her; it'll be painfully obvious to everyone that something had happened while they were out. She shakes her head and grins. They're going to have to explain things anyway, what's one more thing on top of the rest of it?

Finally the Doctor saunters back over, hands shoved in his trouser pockets once more. "Well, that's them taken care of."

Rose nods. "Do you think you can find our way back from here?"

"Ah, we'll be fine," he grins. He holds one of his hands out and waggles his fingers. She laughs and runs forward, grabbing it as they walk out of the alley, ready to head back and face the music.


	18. Chapter 16: Stick With Me, Baby

**Chapter 16: Stick With Me, Baby**

**"Everybody's been a-talkin'; yes, the news travels fast…**  
**…Come on & stick with me, baby; we'll find a way**  
**Yes, we'll find a way…"**

**_Stick With Me Baby, _Robert Plant and Alison Krauss**

* * *

If this situation was anything approaching normal, Gemma thinks, then she would feel like a princess at this moment. She is sitting on a comfy lounge chair on a balcony overlooking a moonlight canal, which, despite the sub-standard view, she thinks is absolutely gorgeous. However, the crowd of people surrounding the chair, all of them looking at her very expectantly, lends to the feeling of being interrogated. She swallows thickly, and takes a sip from the soda Lou had brought to her.

"So," Donna says, crossing her arms over her chest, "start explaining."

She sips at the soda again, puts it down, then sits upright. If she's going to do this, then she's going to do it properly. Gemma makes sure her wings are on straight, then folds her hands in her lap.

"Well. Once upon a time, 'cause that's how all good stories start, don't they…"

* * *

Rose adjusts the folds of her sari in the small closet that leads out to the balcony. "I'll never be able to get this right," she mutters to herself.

By the time they had gotten back, the party's wound down. There were a few tables still filled with people and laughing, but the dancers have all gone, and some of the wait staff was beginning to clean up. It was one of these helpful people who had directed them to where he had seen their group of friends sneak out to one of the more secluded balconies.

"You ready for this?" the Doctor asks, peering over her shoulder at the crack in the door that they can both hear familiar voices floating out of.

Rose tugs at the sari once more, then gives up. She just hopes that she can put off questions about her state of dishabille until Gemma's asleep – there are some things that an almost ten-year-old just doesn't need to know. "Ready as I'll ever be." She straightens up and nods. "Time to face the music." She pushes the door open, making the small crowd on the balcony stop talking and look up at them.

"And where have you two been?" Donna asks from her perch on the lounge next to Gemma. Gemma looks up and winces when she sees Rose.

"I'm sorry, they made me tell them everything!" she blurts out. "They wanted to know how we got here and Donna wouldn't let me go to the loo until I told."

"Everything?" Rose frowns. There are some secrets between sisters (and the Doctor, of course) that shouldn't be shared with everybody, they both know, but Rose can tell that Donna's a formidable character who might have intimidated Gemma into letting some things slip that she shouldn't have.

"Just about," Gemma says, with a small grin. Rose bites back the sigh of relief. So some secrets are still safe, thank goodness.

"Fine by me," Rose shrugs, picking her way through the crowd and almost tripping over Neil's toga as she finds a spot of bare ground by Gemma's feet. "Saves us the trouble of having to go through it." The Doctor follows suit, leaning against the back wall by where Donna is.

Lou shakes her head. "It's given me a headache, frankly. Aliens? Time Travel? Parallel universes? If it was anyone else I would have said that you all were nuts."

Martha pats Lou on the shoulder. "I know the feeling. You get used to it in time, though."

Priya shoots Martha a sideways look and nudges Lou in the side. "Even if you don't believe it at first," she reassures her with a wink.

"I hope so." Lou leans forward, bracing one hand on Priya's wide skirt as she points at the Doctor with the other. "Alien, seriously?

"Yup." The Doctor waves, smile spreading across his face. "Hello." Donna leans down and squints at him, her mouth pursing. He looks back up at her and squirms briefly. "What?" he finally asks.

"You've got a hickey, spaceman," she says, eyebrows arching.

It's not really visible, but Rose is pretty sure that his cheeks are burning, and she bites back a laugh. His hand reaches up to rub the spot on his neck as he replies in a low voice, "Accident with a Hoover. Sorry it's not anything more sordid."

"Pull the other, 's got bells on it," Donna fires back.

"Yeah, I'm with her on this one," Priya drawls, shooting a significant look at Rose. "The probable chances of a vacuum hitting in that exact spot – "

"Moving along!" Rose breaks in, waving her hands in the air. "So, did we miss anything interesting?"

They talk well into the night about everything and nothing, with Neil sneaking off at one point to steal a tray of leftovers from the kitchen. By the time the sun is just beginning to peek over the canals, the only ones left awake are the Doctor and Rose. Donna and Martha have already headed back to the TARDIS, and everyone else has either walked or crawled into their beds upstairs.

"So, one month, right?" Rose asks as she holds onto his hands. They've moved back out into the piazza to say their temporary farewells. There's barely anyone out here, maybe one or two revelers straggling back to their beds, and some early morning churchgoers getting ready to beg penance for their decadence the night before.

"One month," the Doctor nods.

(He wants to ask if she's sure she wants to wait, that he can have the TARDIS in her room in a matter of minutes, and that they can be back in the vortex not long after that, but instinct tells him this wouldn't be a smart move. She wants to take her time to leave properly, so he'll do things her way. After all, a month's not very long, is it?)

"Good," Rose smiles at him, shining like gold in the first rays of the sunrise. She leans up to kiss him hard, then gently pushes him away from her. "So I'll see you soon then?"

"Oh, yes!" he says, walking backwards across the piazza, keeping her in sight until the very last moment. Rose watches as he turns a corner, disappearing to where the TARDIS inevitably is. She smiles to herself, then heads back inside. To say that it's been a long day is a true understatement, and she could definitely use a good sleep.

Gemma stirs in the bed as she sneaks back into the room, and smiles up at her. "This is good, right?" she mumbles sleepily as Rose gets out of the sari and into her pajamas.

"Very good," Rose agrees as she crawls into bed. "One more month, then we're going home."

"Home," Gemma says, curling into Rose's side. "I like the sound of that."

* * *

An urgent call from UNIT sends the TARDIS hurtling back towards London to drop Martha off just in time to get to work, her fancy gown draped in a bag over her shoulder. "Let me know what happens," she calls back as she rushes off, making Donna nod and wave her cell phone in the air in confirmation.

"So, interesting night," Donna smirks, settling herself into the jump seat for the next journey.

"You've got that right," the Doctor nods, flicking a few switches on the console and sending them back into the vortex once more.

"I mean," Donna continues, "of all the things for us to find in Venice I certainly hadn't expected Rose Tyler."

"Yeah," he agrees, shooting a look up at the glowing rotor. "Not that I'm complaining, of course." He has the very strong feeling that the TARDIS's reticence to let him back in the ship was because of Rose's presence, but she's keeping her mouth shut on the issue. No matter, though – the end result was more than he could have ever hoped for, and he's in no position to complain at the moment. Still, there were those lingering feelings of doubt brewing in him like a foul cup of tea.

"Am I making the right choice?" he finally asks, turning to face Donna.

"What do you mean?" she says, slipping off her sandals and curling her legs under her.

"To bring Rose back on board here. And Gemma, too; I said that she'd be welcome to come along." He shakes his head and stares off into the distance. "It's not safe, this life we lead. They could both die in any manner of ways out there. And I can't help but think that it'd be safer for them to stay on Earth."

Donna snorts and rolls her eyes. "What makes you think Earth is any safer, Doctor? A war could break out, someone could bomb the buses again, or a, I don't know, a wild turkey could run out in front of her car causing them to swerve off the road."

"Donna, please," he winces, images of flying feathers and dead turkeys suddenly filling his head.

"You know what I mean, though," she sighs. "All right, just answer me this – if you were saying these things to Rose, what do you think she would say back to you?"

The Doctor laughs to himself and rubs a palm across his forehead. "I'd be lucky not to get smacked if I even suggested that to her."

"Well, there's your answer then," she grins. "Now take me home, space-man," Donna says, holding up a bag. "I've got some souvenirs I want to give to Gramps. I think he'll get a kick out of the masks."

Shortly after that they're landing on Wilf's hill. It's nighttime now, and sure enough he's out there with his thermos of tea and his telescope, eyes trained on the stars once more. "That was a quick trip," he says when the Doctor and Donna walk out into the air. "You've only been gone three weeks since the last visit."

Donna wrinkles her brow and walks closer to her granddad. "What date is it?" she asks.

"22 March."

Donna spins on her heels and glares at the Doctor, who just grins widely back. "I said I'd give her a month. She didn't say I had to wait the full time myself."

"Her who?" Wilf breaks in, getting more curious now.

Donna laughs and settles herself on the ground, grabbing the thermos to warm her hands. "Get comfy, Gramps, have we got a story to tell you."

* * *

The door to the old apartment above the small convenience store on Commonwealth Ave swings open, revealing the two weary girls standing on the other side.

"Home again," Gemma sighs, frowning as she pushes her bag inside the flat.

"Three more weeks," Rose says as she follows, although she's not sure who she's reminding at this point.

"So if we are going to leave," Gemma asks, abandoning the bag and flopping down on the couch, "do I really have to go back to school?"

"Yes, you do," Rose replies, moving around the flat and opening blinds and windows, letting fresh air and light in. "Chances are you're not going to get the chance to go to a proper school for a while when we're on the TARDIS, so you're staying in there until we go."

"Fine," she huffs, folding her arms over her chest, the picture of a petulant child. "Still, no school after that, yay."

"Who knows, you may change your mind at some point," Rose calls back. "In the meantime you'll have one of the best teachers in the universe." Rose pauses briefly, thinking that the Doctor's version of historical events might not always work if Gemma ever decides to go back to school in the 21st century.

"No chance!"

Rose just shakes her head. "You still have to wake up early tomorrow." Gemma groans loudly at that, and Rose laughs.

Rose lays in her bed that night, staring at the play of multicolored neon lights on the ceiling. She should be sleeping, given the forces of jet lag on a body that's just gone through a transatlantic flight, but instead it's three in the morning and she can't sleep. Even after ten years she still misses all of the background noises of the TARDIS as she sleeps – whooshes, rushes, random clicks and snaps, and eventually the soft noises of the Doctor in those rare moments when he couldn't fight the exhaustion anymore and fell asleep next to her. That was what home is, not this flat, despite Gemma's declaration earlier.

Jackie had once told her that home wasn't a place, home was the people that you were with. She had said this in an attempt to make Rose feel a little more at ease in the parallel world. The sentiment didn't take, or was taken in a way that Jackie didn't intend. Home was an immeasurable void away with no immediate hope of crossing it. But ten years, a handful of scattered Gallifreyan script, two universes, many footsteps, a very solid gate key, and one rather coincidental reunion later, home was within reach once more.

With those thoughts in her head, Rose lays there and waits for the sun to rise. Now, she's smiling.

* * *

Two weeks pass quickly. There are things that they have to do: Gemma's busy saying farewell to the people she's met in school. She says she won't miss them, but Rose can't help but wonder how much of that statement is bravado. Rose's daunting task is to pack up the flat, amongst all of the other things she has to do. With the packing, however, she can draft the others into helping.

"All right, where's this going?" Priya asks, holding up some dust collector.

Rose pulls her head out of a box of books and stares. "Bin it," she calls back.

Priya chucks the trinket into one of the many bin bags lying around the flat. "Garbage pickup's tomorrow, right?" she says, casting a wary glance around.

"How the hell did we collect so much stuff?" Rose grouses, slouching back and giving the box of books a kick. "We've barely been living here a year."

"Are you going to have room on the…spaceship," Priya stutters out the word, as if she can't quite wrap her mouth around it, "for all of your and Gemma's stuff?"

Rose can't help but break down laughing at that one. "Trust me, there's more than enough room for us. I believe the appropriate phrase is 'bigger on the inside'."

"What?"

"You'll see when he gets here. Who knows, maybe you and Lou could come for a trip round the universe with us one of these days." Before Priya can get the dumbfounded look off her face and force some words out, there's a loud crash and clatter from the kitchen. "Lou, you okay?" Rose calls out.

"Fine!" she yells back. "You were planning on giving those plates to Goodwill, right?"

"If they're busted just toss 'em."

"Yes, ma'am." The clattering continues, no doubt the sound of ceramic shards hitting the inside of a cardboard box.

Somewhere in the midst of the noise, Rose can hear her mobile go off. She lunges over a half-filled bin bag and grabs it off the coffee table. The readout says 'Donna Noble,' so she quickly clicks it on. "Hello?"

"You left me a message."

Okay, that's definitely the Doctor on the other end of the line… "How did you get Donna's phone?" she asked.

"She was happy to lend it to me. Said I shouldn't be let loose on London without being able to call for help, despite the fact that I am perfectly capable of handling whatever comes my way. But we're getting off the point. You left me a message."

"What message?" Rose asks, leaning back against the couch. Priya's standing there with a concerned look but she waves her away, pointing at the phone and mouthing 'Doctor.' Priya nods with a knowing smirk and wanders off to help Lou out in the kitchen.

"I'm standing here in the middle of the Powell Estates looking at an accurate, if a little inexpertly written, example of graffiti in handwriting from my planet which quite succinctly reads 'Rose Was Here'. Any idea how that suddenly popped up?"

Rose can't help it, and she giggles into the phone. "What can I say; I was feeling a bit nostalgic a few weeks back." She knows he's smiling now, too. "Actually, I was trying to let you know somehow that I was back. So I was hoping that you'd see it at some point, although I didn't think it would be this soon."

"Message received."

If he was close enough, at that moment Rose would have pulled the Doctor close for a long, slow kiss. Instead she settles for another happy giggle.

The Doctor's voice grows serious. "There is something, however, that I need to tell you before you come back."

There's a sudden sinking feeling in Rose's stomach. She knows he's not going to tell her that she can't come back on the TARDIS (and if he did she'd certainly give him what for, and she has the strong feeling that Donna and Martha would help) but what's so important that it can't wait until she's back onboard? "What is it?"

"It's about Jack."

The sinking feeling rises back up and lightens. This is something she can handle. "You mean about how he's not dead?"

"Wha—how?" The Doctor's voice is slightly breathless, and she can imagine the look like a fish gasping for air that's now appeared on his face.

"We had an interesting year travelling around the Earth before we settled in Boston. At one point we ran into some people from Torchwood who worked with Jack."

The Doctor huffs into the phone. "He's going to have to have a serious talk with his employees about confidentiality, I think."

She shakes her head, imagining just for a second that he can see it. "Don't blame them; I weaseled it out of the poor kid."

"That fluttery eyelash thing again?"

"I'll never tell. A girl's got to have some tricks up her sleeve." The matter's not fully settled, she knows. Even now an occasional nightmare about Daleks and the heart of the TARDIS and some glowing yellow light sneaks through her consciousness, and she has the strong feeling that whatever happened to Jack has to do with that. But this is not the time or the place to get into that. Maybe they'll go over it while lying in bed one night, once she's back home and lying in his arms once more.

* * *

Five days before the TARDIS's arrival Rose returns back to the flat with a new and familiar look, surprising Gemma and Lou, who had been drafted into babysitting duty that day. "What do you think?" she asks, flicking the ends of her now bright blonde hair.

"It's interesting," Lou says, walking slowly around her to get the full view.

"You look like yourself again," Gemma smiles.


	19. Chapter 17: Home to You

A/N: and now we're all caught up with what I've got posted on other websites. I'm currently working on revising the epilogue, but with any luck I'll have that out within a week.

A/N 2: in regards to the Torchwood timeline, this story fits in after the end of S2, but no Children of Earth here. I need a certain character alive in this universe (see Storyteller for further details)

* * *

**Chapter 17: Home to You**

**"What is this life that pulls me far away?**  
**What is that home where we cannot reside?**  
**What is that quest that pulls me onward?**  
**My heart is full when you are by my side…**

**Calling, yearning, pulling, home to you…"**

**_Caravanserai, _Loreena McKennitt**

* * *

Three days before the TARDIS arrives Neil shows up in Boston, claiming that the storyteller in him wants to know exactly how this story plays out. Both Lou and Rose wonder how much of this is professional interest and how much is him trying to hit on Priya again.

"I swear to God, if you even try and make a profit out of this," Lou threatens him, grabbing him by the lapels of his shirt and dragging him down to her level, "I will find a way to shoot you."

Neil swears up and down that no profit whatsoever is involved, while Rose and Priya snicker behind their hands.

* * *

One month, the Doctor had agreed to. However, just because he was a Time Lord with an irrefutably accurate grasp of time (it wasn't he that had made those bad landings, it was his ship. Not that he'd say that with the TARDIS in earshot, of course), didn't mean he couldn't fudge things a little. It had taken a great deal of restraint for him to not get in the TARDIS and leap ahead until the scheduled date. He's not quite sure why he waited; all he can come up with is that he wanted to wait. Still, he'd given his TARDIS key to Donna to hold for the last week, just as a precaution. In any case, he finds himself hustling Donna into the TARDIS one day before the scheduled pickup date, intent on getting a head start on things.

"Well, I suppose one day is all right," Donna muses as the TARDIS begins to whir to life. "Rose is probably just as eager as you are."

"I could offer to help with packing, or something like that." He stares at the sonic screwdriver and twists it about, contemplating. "Wonder if I could put a setting on here that could help." The Doctor twists a few buttons and pulls a lever. "However, we just need to make one quick stop first."

Thirty seconds later the Doctor pokes his head out and sees the high ceilings, brick walls, tons of metal scaffolding, lack of sunlight, and highly advanced and possibly alien technology that makes up the Torchwood Cardiff office. There's a young man and woman staring at him, aided by the large guns pointed in his direction as well. "Hands in the air, now," the woman says, waving the gun threateningly at him.

"Jack, call them off," the Doctor hollers out. Not long after that the man in question comes sauntering around a corner, hands shoved in trouser pockets with a very smug grin stretched across his face.

"Well, look what the cat dragged in," Jack says, waving a hand at the two to put their guns away. "Come to check up on us, make sure we're not getting into trouble again?"

"Nah, nothing as complicated as that," the Doctor says, shoving his hands into his pockets to mirror Jack. "I've got to go pick up an old friend of ours; you feel like coming?"

Before Jack or the Doctor can get another word out, Donna's screech carries throughout the underground lair. "'Old friend?' You have _got_ to be kidding me!"

The Doctor shrugs. "I can explain on the way."

"How long is this retrieval trip going to be?" Jack asks, rightfully skeptical.

"I can have you back in a matter of hours," the Doctor reassures him.

Jack nods and gives in. "What the hell; why not?" He turns to the dapper young man standing next to him. "If aliens decide to blow up Cardiff, you know how to reach me. Otherwise I'll be back in a day or so."

* * *

Gemma sighs to herself and stares around the mostly empty apartment. Rose had run down to the post office to forward the mail to Lou and Priya's flat, and had left her at home for the few minutes it would take to make those arrangements. Their flat looks strange now, she thinks, with everything but a few bed linens boxed up in the living room. She suspects that she won't miss it for a while though. This sort of normal life was a nice change for her, but all she could remember before that was the traveling and the wandering. And despite her protests, she rather liked that traveling life. And now Rose would be happy with that life, too, because she finally had the Doctor back. So things were definitely looking up.

There's an odd sort of sound coming from outside. The street is usually noisy on a good day, what with the Green Line train going by every few minutes, the cars taking the road faster than they should with no regard for the pedestrians, and the pedestrians yelling back at the cars. But this noise doesn't sound like any of those. She goes over to the front windows and pushes one of the cheap blinds aside. There on the sidewalk, between a garbage can and a lamppost, a large blue box fades into existence.

Gemma had never seen the TARDIS before, but she'd heard the stories. She knows that there is only one thing in the entire wide universe that the tall blue structure with the words 'Police Public Call Box' on it could be. So even though Rose had told her to stay inside the flat, she runs outside and down the stairs, exiting onto the stoop at the same moment the Doctor walks out onto the sidewalk.

"You're a day early," Gemma says as the Doctor hops up on the stone steps, squinting in the spring sunshine. They're lucky that it's sunny today; spring in Boston can provide a multitude of weather, from nor'easters with downpours of rain, to the occasional blizzard, and even a heat wave or two now and then. But today is quite brilliant, cool and sunny, with the leaves just starting to poke their heads out on the trees.

"Maybe so," he shrugs, smiling. "Maybe I couldn't wait any longer."

"Fine with me," Gemma agrees, bouncing on her toes. "Um, you didn't tell Rose by any chance what happened in the museum, did you?" she asks, stopping with the bouncing and wringing her hands together.

The Doctor suddenly looks nervous himself and raises a hand to scratch the back of his neck. "No, I didn't tell her anything. Did you tell her anything?"

"Nope. So maybe let's not tell her anything until things have settled down a bit?" Gemma suggests, firing a winning grin at the Doctor.

(The Doctor is more than okay with this suggestion. Maybe it makes him a coward. He prefers to look at it as waiting to bring up a sensitive matter until the time is right.)

"Fine with me," the Doctor nods. "So where's Rose?" he asks.

"She went to the post…actually she's right there." Gemma points up the block, where Rose is walking towards them. The moment when she sees the TARDIS outside is clear, as her walk slows and she pulls her sunglasses off. When she gets close enough she smiles at the Doctor and Gemma, taking a moment to stroke the outside of the ship that she hasn't seen in so long.

"You're early," she eventually says, turning to the two on the steps. The Doctor shrugs with a smirk, not offering up any further explanations. "This isn't necessarily a bad thing, despite the fact that you didn't listen to what I said."

"It's one day, Rose; I think he's okay," Gemma butts in.

"Oh, he's fine," Rose grins, moving closer. "It's actually pretty good timing – the girls have decided to take Gemma and I out to dinner tonight, bit of a farewell gift. I'm sure they wouldn't mind if you tagged along."

"Well, I appreciate the invite," the Doctor says as Rose climbs onto the same step he's on. "Hello," he whispers.

"Hi," she whispers back, leaning upwards to kiss him hello. Gemma giggles, getting that feeling of seeing happy endings in action once more. The wolf whistles that came from the TARDIS are what pulled the Doctor and Rose apart, however. "What's that?" Rose asks.

"That's the moving crew."

She nods. "Might as well get the crew – and the TARDIS – inside so we can get packing then."

* * *

Six hours. It's been six hours since she had the Doctor back, they haven't even gone on a trip in the TARDIS yet, and already the creepy bad aliens have tried to attack them. She's got one hand holding on tight to the Doctor's shoulder, and the other's got a death grip on the metal bar next to her. Between the two she's able to stay upright on the train that's hurtling down the subterranean tracks at a speed that's far faster than it should normally be going.

"Aliens on the T!" Lou yells out, hanging off of her own pole. "Now why, out of everything, does that _not_ surprise me?"

The Doctor looks up from the clutch of wires he's managed to pull out of the wall of the car. "I won't be able to stop the car," he says, "but I will be able to slow us down as we pull up to the platform." He looks around, seeing the nervous group of people watching him. He's lucky in that it's only Rose's and his friends here right now; all of the rest of the people had run away when the strange little things started flying in the windows. "So I think we're going to have to jump for it."

Priya whimpers at his statement, but still stands up straight anyway. "Of all the days to wear a new dress," she mutters.

"All right, everyone take a door on the same side," the Doctor orders them. "The train will slow down and the doors will open. When they open – jump. Otherwise we're going to be stuck on this train for another hour." Quickly the group arranges themselves; the Doctor's got Rose on one side of him and Donna on the other. Neil and Priya take the center door, Lou and Jack take the last. Jack's currently got Gemma draped over his back, having taken on the role of bodyguard for the girl. It's the safest way, really. Jack has lives to spare, and he'd have no problem giving one or two of them up to protect her.

"We're coming up to the station," Rose yells, watching as the tunnel grows lighter. The Doctor clicks a few settings on the screwdriver and sets it into action as they slow down and pull into the station. The screwdriver whirs, the doors open, and the whole lot of them leap for the platform.

Rose, the Doctor, and Donna land in an undignified heap on the dingy pavement. Neil and Priya manage to crash into a group of teenagers, looking angry and shocked that the train didn't stop all at the same time. Jack, Gemma, and Lou fare somewhat better, as there wasn't anyone standing in front of them and a slight meeting with the red and white tiled wall stops their forward motion.

"Is it over?" Neil asks as they all get to their feet.

"No," the Doctor says, helping Donna up. "We disturbed their lair, so they're going to be coming after us."

"Just bloody great," Donna groans, dusting some subway grime off of her dress.

"We'll have a better chance if we can lure them to some open space, though," the Doctor continues, staring wildly around the platform. "Where's the way out of here?"

Priya, Lou, and Rose trade a look, and Lou begins to make an odd whining noise. "What is it?" Jack asks, shifting his hold on Gemma who tightens her arms around his neck in turn.

Lou sighs, as if resigning herself to the inevitable. "The Common's right above us. You need open space, it's right there. Just…please don't destroy it. I don't want us to be responsible for wrecking a national landmark."

The Doctor just grins manically at her and races up the stairs, with the rest of them following behind.

* * *

It takes them all night and well into the morning to take care of the aliens, and by the time they're done, everyone knows it's time for them to go. "This isn't good-bye," Rose reassures her friends. She's worked too hard to keep them, and she's not letting them go. "Phone, e-mail, and I'll come and visit in a month, _I promise_."

"You'd better," they grin at her. "Otherwise we'll stage an alien invasion just to get you back here."

Soon, however, the vortex calls and they have to go and drop Jack off back in Cardiff. "You're good for him, Rosie," he says to her as she gives him a final hug. "And if he gives you any crap, let me know and I'll kick some sense into him."

Gemma's eyes are wide as TARDIS settles comfortably into the vortex. "That was brilliant," she breathes. Rose rubs a hand up and down one of the internal coral struts and mouths 'thank you'. There's a warm pulse beneath her fingertips and a spark races through her mind. She can tell the TARDIS is welcoming them back home.

"I'm glad you like her." The Doctor smiles as the young girl yawns widely. "And on that note I think it's time for you to get some sleep."

Gemma nods. "I'm tired, but I'm too awake to sleep. And I can't remember where my room is," she sighs.

"Come on, I'll show you," Donna says, dropping a hand on Gemma's shoulder and shooting a significant look at the Doctor and Rose. "Unless it's a universe ending emergency, I won't be expecting you for dinner tonight," she says to them with a smirk. Rose just blushes, and the Doctor raises an eyebrow in Donna's direction.

"Wait a sec," the Doctor says, scrabbling for something beneath the console. In a few seconds he re-emerges with a familiar looking book, and hands it to Gemma. "It's a book of fairy tales from all around the universe. If you can't sleep, maybe read a little."

(He figures that this is a good way to start getting Gemma used to the reality that there's a whole wide world beyond the TARDIS doors just waiting for her. The Doctor finds himself having to bite back the smile as he thinks of how much she'll enjoy the first place they're going to take her.)

Gemma clutches the book close to her chest, and nods. "I will. Good night, morning, whichever."

"Sleep well, love," Rose says. "If you need me, just call out, and the TARDIS will let me know."

Once Gemma and Donna are gone, the Doctor pulls Rose close as they lean against the jump seat, watching the symbols that scurry across the monitor. "I should go get changed," Rose eventually says with a sniff at the sleeve of her dress. "That chase through the park really did this outfit in."

"You know, you could just stay right here," the Doctor says, tightening his arms around her waist. "We could…do something with the dress. Not sure what, but I'll figure it out."

Rose laughs, and twists in his arms to press a kiss to his mouth. That pretty much sums everything up about them, that they'll figure it out. And the best way for them to do that is together. "I'll be back in two minutes," she mumbles against his mouth. "If you want to watch on the monitor, I'm sure the TARDIS will oblige you."

It doesn't take Rose long to find her old room, practically unchanged since the last time she had been in there, oh, so long ago. Her current belongings have been moved into the Doctor's room, but there's one specific thing she's looking for. Her eyes scan the room until she sees the small ink pot and stylus on the bookshelf. She smiles to herself as she picks up the items, feeling their familiar weight in her hands for the first time in ten very long years. Rose takes them with her to the Doctor's room, setting them carefully down on the nightstand.

Longer than two minutes passes as Rose gets distracted by the lovely hot shower the TARDIS has provided in the en suite. When she gets out, steamy and damp but finally clean and wrapped in a fluffy bathrobe, the Doctor's already tucked up in their bed, looking like he's about ready to call it a night himself. "When was the last time you slept well?" Rose asks, pulling the towel from her hair and shaking out the excess water.

The Doctor shrugs. "Can't remember, really. But it's like Gemma said, I'm too wired to sleep properly right now."

"Personally, I feel like I could sleep for a week," Rose says, shedding the bathrobe and sliding under the covers next to him. She curls up against his cool skin, feeling the beating of his left heart under her cheek.

For a few minutes there's a thick cloak of silence over the room, like there's been a warm blanket tossed around them. "Rose, can I ask you a question?" the Doctor says, lifting the cloak and shattering the silence with his soft voice.

"Sure."

He tilts his head down to look at her, dark eyes large and earnest. "You said that you had followed the writings that we put on you to get back here. And it's true, I know it's true. But I just…I don't remember half of the things that I did write on you. I should remember, especially with something so large and important. But I can't."

"Does it matter that you can't remember?" Rose asks, shifting herself to lean on her elbows and look him in his worried face.

The Doctor nods. "Yes, it does."

There's an easy way to fix this, Rose knows, and she's more than willing to demonstrate to him. "Do you want me to show you?"

"Would you?"

She nods eagerly, and pulls the Doctor to a sitting position on the bed. Rose smiles widely at him, despite her tiredness, and lets all of the writings come out on her skin, black circles, lines, stars and whorls that tell the story of who they are, where they've been. Soon, she'll be able to tell the story of where they're going as well. The Doctor leans forward and kisses her deeply. She could spend all day doing this, but they've got a mission right now.

"Here," Rose says when they finally separate. She takes his hand and places it over the script that's on the inside of her left wrist. "It all started here, with 'run'. You remember giving me that one, don't you? Then, you follow it up this way…"

Epilogue to follow…


	20. Epilogue: Bliss

**a/n:** This is it, the very last part of Mysterious Ways. Not the end of the Sonnetsverse, not by far, but the reunion fic is finally done, over two and a half years from when I first started this back at the beginning of 2008. My never ending thanks to **earlgreytea68** for her always cracking beta job, and to **mrs_roy** for her support to get these parts finished. Further thanks to everyone over the years who's helped with beta-ing and idea bouncing, and just general support in the best ways possible. Finally, thank you to everyone who's read and left a note over the various parts - you have no idea how much it means to me to hear that people have been enjoying the story. So I hope you enjoy the final part of Mysterious Ways, and stay tuned for more to come.

**a/n 2:** If you want a better idea of how I envision the planet in the text below, watch this video: http: / www. youtube. com/ watch?v=eMqsWc8muj8&ob=av2e. (remove spaces) It's actually the music video for the song quoted below, which inspired a lot of the imagery. That and the song is awesome, however I am a bit biased, lol...

* * *

**Epilogue: Bliss**

**"Everything about you is how I'd wanna be**

**Your freedom comes naturally…**

**…Everything about you is so easy to love**

**They're watching you from above…**

**…Everything about you resonates happiness**

**Now I won't settle for less."**

**_Bliss_, Muse**

Many years later…or many years ago

(depending on your perspective and place in the universe…)

This planet that she's standing on is a desolate waste. Actually, that's a polite way to phrase things – to say that this planet is dying would be a more accurate statement. Off in the distance are the remains of a crumbling, once magnificent city, now reduced to blackened girders and ghostly fingers that scrape the smoggy night sky. But the planet's not totally a waste, Gemma Tyler knows. There's a small tear in the fabric of time on this planet, which is exactly what she's here for.

What's it been now, fifteen years since they first set off into space again? Fifteen years of trouble, adventure, and a hell of a lot of running. Fifteen years of learning all about the universe, and learning that even at fifteen hundred years she'll only know a small fraction of its secrets. Fifteen years of learning that family's not just the folk you're born to, but the loved ones you collect along the journey as well, although the littlest ones that are born into the family are utter joys too. And there's still so much more out there for this motley and wonderful family to see. Right now, however, Gemma needs to take advantage of her fifteen years of experience and focus on the job she's come here to do.

She hefts the small book in her hand and runs a thumb over the cover. This copy is shiny and new, despite the fact that when she had first encountered the volume it looked far older and much more worn. Gemma suspects the book had had an interesting life. While part of her would love to witness that life unfolding, she knows that it's time to let go and let it live on its own, if a book could be said to have that sort of a life.

A hand reaches over and pulls the book out of her grip. Gemma looks over to see her own companion, a young man of her age with light brown hair and a distinctly warped perspective on life, begin to flip through the pages. "You put five years of work into this," Bruno says. "Do you really want to let it go?"

Gemma shrugs. He's right, she had put five very long years of work into this book, into getting the right combination of fairy tales and legends and retelling them the way the older version did. That version had been lost when she was fifteen, disappearing into time and space, so she was taking it on faith that she had managed to produce an exact copy of what she remembered. No one had known about her project, which was necessary in order to maintain temporal stability, or so the Doctor would say. Bruno, however, had forced his way into the project, being the stubborn sort that wouldn't let her get sucked into her own little world at the expense of everything else she loved in life. "Maybe it's the sort of book that no one's meant to hold onto for too long. And I know someone's going to need this in the past, so setting it loose is the right thing to do."

Bruno nods, and hands the book back to her. Gemma sighs heavily and clutches the book close as she looks down the deep sinkhole that leads to the rip in time. "There's an epic love story in these pages, you know," she says. "Even if it doesn't look like it at first glance." She thinks of Rose, and the Doctor, and she smiles. It had taken them a long time to get where they are now, but all of the pain and grief and years being lost were worth it in the end. And they've got many years to go, many new adventures to have, and so much more to see.

Gemma holds the book out over the sinkhole. She lets it go and they watch as it falls, crisp white pages fluttering in the darkness. The book soon hits the rip in time, disappearing with a gold flash and a glimmer of stardust.

"That's that, then," Gemma says as Bruno reaches to take her hand.

He glances her way, an unreadable look in his blue eyes. "What was that phrase you used about time again?" he asks. "'Wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey'?"

"Yup," she smirks. The man's learning, Gemma thinks. At first it was a bit strange, dragging the poor, inexperienced Earth boy into her crazy world as a teenager. But Bruno had taken to her life far better than she could have ever imagined. Now, she's got her own epic love story out of the deal, so she'll never say that the strangeness wasn't worth it. But that's another story and shall be told another time.

"That's what I thought," Bruno says, and drops her hand. Gemma looks over at him as he begins to rummage around in the inner pocket of his leather jacket. The length of time he spends in his rummage makes her suspect the TARDIS took some liberties with his garment. Before she can question him on the matter, however, he pulls something out of the pocket with a grin and a flourish, leaving Gemma utterly gobsmacked.

This book is decidedly not shiny and new. The pages are dog-eared, the cover is creased, and there's a smear of holographic glitter nail polish across the black front cover that she clearly remembers causing when she was thirteen years old and distracted. "Where did you get that?" she asks, lunging for him and the book. Bruno laughs, the sound happily loud in the stillness of the dead planet, and practically dances out of the way.

"It was sticking out from under the bookshelf in the room the TARDIS gave me," he says, smirking as he backs away from Gemma's chasing, keeping the book constantly just out of reach.

"Whe-h-how?" Gemma stutters out. She makes a flying leap and grabs the book from Bruno, nearly knocking them both over into the grey dirt in the process. He grabs her around the waist to keep them from hitting the ground, although it takes a good few seconds for them to get their balance once more.

"Couple of days ago," he reassures her. "You know we finished long before that."

"Sometimes everything works out," Gemma mumbles, slightly distracted by the warmth of his arms around her and more than slightly overwhelmed by this turn of events. "Not gonna question it," she continues with a giggle, stretching upwards to kiss him.

When they pull apart he grabs her hand once more, and squeezes tight. "Come on," he says, "back to the TARDIS."

Gemma squeezes back, and smiles once more. "Yeah. Let's go home."

The End


End file.
